On Sunday, while waiting for the early dinner, Jasper and Mysie happened to be together in the drawing-room, and Mysie took the opportunity of showing her brother the different cuttings of poetry. The lines were smooth, and some had a certain swing in them such as Mysie, with an unformed taste, a love for Miss Hacket, and amazement that the words of a familiar acquaintance of her own should appear in print, genuinely admired. But the eyes of a youth exercised in ‘chaffing’ the productions of one of his fellow ‘men’ were infinitely more critical. Besides, what could be more shocking to the General’s son than the confusion between the evening gun and the sham fight? And Mysie had been reduced to confusion for not detecting the faults, and then pardoned in consideration of being only a girl, by the time the gong summoned them to the Sunday roast beef. The dinner over, the female part of the family, scampered headlong upstairs, while Harry repaired with his mother to her room to talk over a letter from his father respecting his plans on leaving Oxford. The other boys hung about the hall, until Gillian and Dolores came down equipped for walking. ‘Hollo, Gill! All right! Where’s Mysie? We’ll be off! Mysie! Mice! Mouse! Val!’ ‘You must wait for them, Japs,’ said Gillian. ‘They are having their dresses changed; and, don’t you remember, I always go to Miss Hacket’s.’ ‘Botheration! What for?’ ‘You know very well.’ ‘Oh yes. To help her to write touching verses about the sweet dead dove, with voice and plumage soft as love, eh? Only, Gill, I’m afraid your memory is failing, if you don’t know the evening gun from rifle practice.’ ‘Nonsense! that’s no concern of mine,’ said Gillian, opening the front door, very anxious to get Dolores away from hearing anything worse. ‘Oh, that’s your modesty. Only such a conjunction could have produced such a scene that the evening star came up backwards to look at it!’ ‘For shame, Jasper! How in the world did you get hold of that?’ ‘Too sweet a thing not to meet with universal fame,’ said Jasper, to whom it was exquisite fun to assume that Gillian devoted her Sunday afternoons to the concoction of such poetry with Constance Hacket, and thus to revenge himself for his disgust and jealousy at having his favourite companion and slave engrossed. Wilfred hopped about like an imp in ecstasy, grinning in the face of Dolores, whom Gillian longed to free from her tormentors. The shout was welcome, as Mysie and Valetta came tearing down the drive after them. ‘Japs! Japs! Oh, we couldn’t come before because nurse would make us take off our Sunday serges. Come and let out the dogs. Mamma says we may see if there are any nice fir cones in the plantation to gild for the Christmas-tree.’ ‘And you won’t come?’ said Jasper. ‘The Muses must meet. What a poem you will produce! ‘Hear I a cannon or a rifle, That is an unessential trifle!’