Great was the jubilation, and many the inquiries after Primrose, who had once been nearly well, but had fallen back again, and Fly, who, Mysie said, was quite well and as comical as ever when she was well, but quickly tired. She had set out in high spirits, but had been dreadfully weary all the latter part of the journey, and was to go to bed at once. She still coughed, but Mysie was bent on disproving Nurse Halfpenny’s assurance that the recovery would not be complete till May, nor was there any doubt of her own air of perfect health.
It was an evening of felicitous chatter, of showing off Christmas cards, of exchanging of news, of building of schemes, the most prominent being that Valetta should be in the constant companionship of Mysie and Fly until her own schoolroom should be re-established. This had been proposed by Lord Rotherwood, and was what the aunts would have found convenient; but apparently this had been settled by Lord Rotherwood and the two little girls, but Lady Rotherwood had not said anything about it, and quoth Mysie, ‘Somehow things don’t happen till Lady Rotherwood settles them, and then they always do.’
‘And shall I like Miss Elbury?’ asked Valetta.
‘Yes, if—if you take pains,’ said Mysie; ‘but you mustn’t bother her with questions in the middle of a lesson, or she tells you not to chatter. She likes to have them all kept for the end; and then, if they aren’t foolish, she will take lots of trouble.’
‘Oh, I hate that!’ said Valetta. ‘I shouldn’t remember them, and I like to have done with it. Then she is not like Miss Vincent?’
‘Oh no! She couldn’t be dear Miss Vincent; but, indeed, she is very kind and nice.’
‘How did you get on altogether, Mysie! Wasn’t it horrid?’ asked Gillian.
‘I was afraid it was going to be horrid,’ said Mysie. ‘You see, it wasn’t like going in holiday time as it was before. We had to be almost always in the schoolroom; and there were lots of lessons—more for me than Fly.’
‘Just like a horrid old governess to slake her thirst on you,’ put in Fergus; and though his aunts shook their heads at him, they did not correct him.
‘And one had to sit bolt upright all the time, and never twist one’s ankles,’ continued Mysie; ‘and not speak except French and German—good, mind! It wouldn’t do to say, “La jambe du table est sur mon exercise?”’