Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.
‘It really was a horrid place,’ said Aunt Ada, when alone with her sister; ‘and such a porpoise of a woman! Gillian should not have represented her as a favourite.’
‘I do not remember that she did so,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘I wish she had waited for me. I have seen more of the kind of thing than you have, Ada.’
‘I am sure I wish she had. I don’t know when I shall get over the stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest friends.’
‘Girls will be silly! And there’s a feeling about the old regiment too. I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient. I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay of the family.’
‘But she would have nothing to do with you or the G.F.S.’
‘If I had known that her father had been an officer, I might have approached her differently. However, I will ask Lily about their antecedents, and in six weeks we shall know what is to be done about them.’
CHAPTER V. — MARBLES
Six weeks seem a great deal longer to sixteen than to six-and-forty, and Gillian groaned and sighed to herself as she wrote her letters, and assured herself that so far from her having done enough in the way of attention to the old soldier’s family, she had simply done enough to mark her neglect and disdain.