‘Murderers! Murderers must be done for,’ shouted Wilfred, falling upon Mysie.
‘You shan’t hurt my Mysie,’ bellowed Valetta, hurling herself upon Wilfred.
And there they were all in a heap, when Gillian, summoned by the shrieks, came down from helping her mother, pulled Valetta off Wilfred, Wilfred off Mysie, Mysie off Fergus, and Fergus off Dolores, who was discovered at the bottom with an angry, frightened face, and all her hair standing on end.
‘Are you hurt, Dolores? I am very sorry,’ said Gillian. ‘It was very naughty. Go up to the nursery, Fergus and Val, and be made fit to be seen.’
They obeyed, crestfallen. Dolores felt herself all over. It would have been gratifying to have had some injury to complain of, but she had fallen on the prince’s cushions, and there really was none. So she only said, ‘No, I’m not hurt, though it is a wonder;’ and off she walked to bolt herself into her own room again, there to brood on Valetta’s speech.
It worked up into a very telling and pathetic history for Constance’s sympathizing ears on Sunday, especially as it turned out to be one of the things not reported to mamma.
And on that day, Dolores, being reminded of it by her friend, sent a letter to Mr. Flinders to the office of the paper for which he worked in London, to tell him that if he wished to write to her as he had promised he must address under cover to Miss Constance Hacket, Casement Cottage, as otherwise Aunt Lilias would certainly read all his letters.
CHAPTER IX. — LETTERS
Constance Hacket was very much excited about the address to Dolores’s letter to her uncle. She had not noticed it at the moment that it was written, but she did when she posted it; and the next time she could get her young friend alone, she eagerly demanded what Mr. Flinders had to do with the Many Tongues, and why her niece wrote to him at the office.