Lady Merrifield burst out laughing.
‘My dear child, he thinks as much of you as of old Halfpenny!’
‘Oh, mamma, are you sure?’ said Gillian, still hiding her face. ‘It was not silliness of my own; but Kitty Varley told Val that everybody said it—her sister, and Miss Mohun, and all. Why can’t he go away, and not be always bothering about this horrid place with nothing to do?’
‘How thankful I shall be to have you all safe at Clipston!’
‘But, mamma, can’t you keep him off us?’
Valetta’s sobbing entrance here prevented more; but while explaining to her the causes of her father’s displeasure, her mother extracted a good deal more of the gossip, to which she finally returned answer—
‘There is no telling the harm that is done by chattering gossip in this way. You might have learnt by what happened before what mistakes are made. What am I to do, Valetta? I don’t want to hinder you from having friends and companions; but if you bring home such mischievous stories, I shall have to keep you entirely among ourselves till you are older and wiser.’
‘I never—never will believe—anybody who says anybody is going to marry anybody!’ sobbed Valetta desperately and incoherently.
‘Certainly no one who knows nothing about the matter. There is nothing papa and I dislike much more than such foolish talk; and to tease your sister about it is even worse; but I will say no more about that, as I believe it was chiefly Wilfred’s doing.’
‘I—told—Will,’ murmured Valetta. ‘Mysie begged me not, but I had done it.’