a very nice-looking woman who opened the door, though she might have been the better for a cap. Aunt Jane shook hands with her, rather to Gillian’s surprise, and heard that Lily was much the same.
‘It is her spirits are so bad, you see, Miss Mohun,’ she added, as she ushered them into a somewhat stuffy little parlour, carpeted and bedecked with all manner of knick-knacks, photographs, and framed certificates of various societies of temperance and providence on the gaily-papered walls. The girl lay on a couch near the fire, a sallow creature, with a big overhanging brow, made heavier by a dark fringe, and an expression that Gillian not unjustly decided was fretful, though she smiled, and lighted up a little when she saw Miss Mohun.
There was a good deal said about her bad nights, and her appetite, and how the doctor wanted her to take as much as she could, and how everything went against her—even lardy cake and roly-poly pudding with bacon in it!
Miss Mohun put the flowers on the little table near the girl, who smiled a little, and thanked her in a languid dreary manner. Finding that she had freshly been visited by the rector, Miss Mohun would not stop for any serious reading, but would leave Miss Merrifield to read a story to her.
‘And you ought to get on together,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are just about the same age, and your names rhyme—Gillian and Lilian. And Gillians mother is a Lily too.’
This the young lady lid not like, for she was already feeling it a sort of presumption in the girl to bear a name so nearly resembling her mother’s. She had seen a little cottage poverty, and had had a class of little maidservants; but this level of life which is in no want, keeps a best parlour, and does not say ma’am, was quite new to her, and she did not fancy it. When the girls were left together, while Mrs. Giles returned to her ironing, Gillian was the shyer of the two, and began rather awkwardly and reluctantly—
‘Miss Mohun thought you would like to hear this. It is a sort of German fairy tale.’
Lilian said, ‘Yes, Miss Merrifield’ in a short dry tone, completing Gillian’s distaste, and she began to read, not quite at her best, and was heartily glad when at the end of half an hour Mrs. Giles was heard in parley with another visitor, so that she had an excuse for going away without attempting conversation. She was overtaken by the children on their way home from their schools, where they had dined. They rushed upon her, together with the two Varleys, who wanted to take them home to tea; and Gillian giving her ready consent, Fergus dashed home to fetch his beloved humming-top, which was to be introduced to Clement Varley’s pump, and in a few minutes they were off, hardly vouchsafing an answer to such comparatively trifling inquiries as how they were placed at their schools.
Gillian found, however, that neither of her aunts was pleased at her having consented to the children’s going out without reference to their authority. How did she suppose they were to come home?
‘I did not think, can’t they be fetched?’ said Gillian, startled.
‘It is not far,’ said Adeline, pitying her. ‘One of the maids—’
‘My dear Ada!’ exclaimed Aunt Jane. ‘You know that Fanny cannot go out at night with her throat, and I never will send out those young girls on any account.’
‘Can’t I go?’ said Gillian desperately.
‘Are not you a young girl? I must go myself.’
And go she did at a quarter to eight, and brought home the children, looking much injured. Gillian went upstairs with them, and there was an outburst.
‘It was horrid to be fetched home so soon, just as there was a chance of something nice; when all the tiresome big ones had gone to dress, and we could have had some real fun,’ said Valetta.
‘Real fun! Real sense!’ said Fergus.
‘But what had you been about all this time?’
‘Why, their sisters and a man that was there would come and drink tea in the nursery, where nobody wanted them, and make us play their play.
‘Wasn’t that nice? You are always crying out for Harry and me to come and play with you.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t like that,’ said Val, ‘you play with us, and they only pretended, and played with each other. It wasn’t nice.’
‘Clem said it was—forking,’ said Fergus.
‘No, spooning,’ said Val. ‘The dish ran after the spoon, you know.’
‘Well, but you haven’t told me about the schools,’ said Gillian, in elder sisterly propriety, thinking the subject had better be abandoned.
‘Jolly, jolly, scrumptious!’ cried Fergus.
‘Oh! Fergus, mamma doesn’t like slang words. Jasper doesn’t say them.’
‘Not at home, but men say what they like at school, and the ‘bus was scrumptious and splendiferous!’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ said Valetta; ‘I can’t bear being boxed up with horrid rude boys.’
‘Because you are only a girl!’
‘Now, Gill, they shot with—’
‘Val, if you tell—’
‘Telling Gill isn’t telling. Is it, Gill?’
She assented.
‘They did, Gill. They shot at us with pea-shooters,’ sighed the girl.
‘Oh! it was jolly, jolly, jolly!’ cried the boy. ‘Stebbing hit the girl who made the sour face on her cheeks, and they all squealed, and the cad looked in and tried to jaw us.’
‘But that dreadful boy shot right into his mouth,’ said Val, while Fergus went into an ecstasy of laughter. ‘Wasn’t it a shame, Gill?’
‘Indeed it was’ said Gillian. ‘Such ungentlemanly boys ought not to be allowed in the omnibus.’
‘Girls shouldn’t be allowed in the ‘bus, they are so stupid,’ said Fergus. ‘That one—as cross as old Halfpenny—who was she, Val?’
‘Emma Norton! Up in the highest form!’
‘Well, she is a prig, and a tell-tale-tit besides; only Stebbing said if she did, her junior would catch it.’
‘What a dreadful bully he must be!’ exclaimed Gillian.
I’ll tell you what,’ said Fergus, in a tone of profound admiration, ‘no one can hold a candle to him at batting! He snowballed all the Kennel choir into fits, and he can brosier old Tilly’s stall, and go on just the same.’
‘What a greedy boy!’ exclaimed Val.
‘Disgusting,’ added Gillian.
‘You’re girls,’ responded Fergus, lengthening the syllable with infinite contempt; but Valetta had spirit enough to reply, ‘Much better be a girl than rude and greedy.’
‘Exactly,’ said Gillian; ‘it is only little silly boys who think such things fine. Claude doesn’t, nor Harry, nor Japs.’
‘You know nothing about it,’ said Fergus.
‘Well,
