The days were shortening so that Lady Merrifield had doubts as to the fitness of letting the girls return in the dark, but Gillian would have been grieved to relinquish her class, and the matter was adjusted by the two remaining till evensong, when there was sure to be sufficient escort for them to come home with. Therewith arrived the holidays and Jasper, whose age came between those of Gillian and Mysie. Dolores had looked forward to his coming, for, by all the laws of fiction, he was bound to be the champion of the orphan niece, and finally to develop into her lover and hero. In ‘No Home,’ when Clare’s aunt locked her up and fed her on bread and water for playing the piano better than her spiteful cousin Augusta, Eric, the boy of the family, had solaced her with cold pie and ice-creams drawn up in a basket by a cord from the window. He had likewise forced from his cruel mother the locket which proved Clare’s identity with the mourning countess’s golden-haired grandchild and heiress, and he had finally been rewarded with her hand, becoming in some mysterious manner Lord Eric. Jasper, however, or Japs, as his family preferred to call him, proved to be a big, shy boy, not at all delighted with the introduction of a stranger among his sisters, neither golden-haired nor all-accomplished, only making him feel his home invaded, and looking at him with her great eyes. ‘Is that girl here for good?’ he asked, when he found himself with Harry and Gillian. ‘Yes, of course,’ said the cousin, ‘while her father is away, and that is for three years.’ Jasper whistled. ‘Aunt Ada said,’ added Gillian, ‘that if she got too tiresome, mamma had Uncle Maurice’s leave to send her to school.’ ‘That would be no good to me,’ said Jasper, ‘for she would still be here in the holidays.’ ‘Has she been getting worse?’ asked Harry. ‘No, I don’t know that she has,’ said Gillian, ‘except that she runs after that Constance more than ever. But, I say, Jasper, mamma says she is particularly anxious that there should be no teasing of her; and you can hinder Wilfred better than anybody can. She wants her to be really at home, and one--’ But though Jasper was very fond both of mother and sister, he would not stand a second-hand lecture, and broke in with an inquiry about chances of rabbit-shooting. Among his juniors he heard more opinions and more undisguised, when the whole party had rushed out together to the stable-yard to inspect the rabbits and other live-stock. ‘And Dolly says you are a fright,’ sighed Mysie, condoling with a very awkward-looking puppy which she was nursing. ‘She! she thinks everything a fright!’ said Valetta. ‘Except Constance,’ added Wilfred. ‘Who is ugliest of all!’ politely chimed in Fergus. ‘Oh, Japs, she is such a nasty girl--Dolly, I mean!’ cried Valetta. “You know you ought not to say ‘nasty,’” exclaimed Mysie. ‘Well, but she is!’ insisted Val. ‘She squashed a dear little ladybird, and said it would sting!’