‘But if you haven’t done your lessons, you can’t go,’ said Valetta decidedly.
Off they went, and Lady Merrifield presently crossed the hall, and saw Dolores’ attitude.
‘My dear, are you waiting to say those verses?’ she said kindly.
‘I hadn’t time to learn them, I went to sleep,’ said Dolores.
‘A very good thing too, my dear. Suppose we go over them together.’
Aunt Lilias took the unwilling hand, led Dolores into the schoolroom, and for half an hour she went over the verses with her, explaining what was new to the girl, and vividly describing the agitation of Plymouth, and the flocks of people thronging in. ‘I must show her that I will be minded, but I will make it pleasant to her, poor child,’ she thought.
And it could not have been otherwise than pleasant to her, but that she was reflecting all this time that she was being punished while Mysie was enjoying herself. Therefore she put the lid on her intellect, and was inconceivably stupid.
CHAPTER VI. — PERSECUTION
On Monday afternoon Dolores was sitting at the end of the long garden walk, upon a green garden-bench, with a crocodile’s head and tail roughly carved. The shouts of the others were audible in the distance beyond the belt of trees. Aunt Lily had driven into the town to meet her sisters, taking Fergus with her, whereas Dolores had never been out in the carriage. There was partiality! Though, to be sure, Fergus was to have a tooth out! Harry and Gillian were playing with the rest, and she had been invited to join, but she had made answer that she hated romping, and on being assured that no romping was necessary, she replied that she only wanted to read in peace. She had refused the “Thorn Fortress,” which she was told would explain the game, and had hunted out “Clare, or No Home,” to compare her lot with that of the homeless one.