The Lady Viola passes completely out of this story. The Palace of the Kings had lain empty and deserted for over twenty long years, and Miss Delacour knew this fact and intended to act accordingly. After making full inquiries she paid the old Duke a visit, taking with her a certain Mrs Macintyre. Mrs Macintyre was one of those women whom all men respect, if they do not love. She had lost both husband and children. She was of high birth and equally good education. She was now, however, in sore want, and Miss Delacour thought she saw a way of helping her and also adding to the lustre of her own name as a great philanthropist. Miss Delacour did most of the talking, and Mrs Macintyre all the sad, gentle smiles. In short, they won over the old Duke, and Miss Delacour arranged that she should call upon Lucy's husband in order to propound her scheme.
The little girls and the boys had time to meet before Miss Delacour's arrival. Although that lady was well off, she would not take a motor-car from Edinburgh to the Upper Glen. She believed that her brother-in-law had a motor-car, and thought it the height of selfishness on his part that he did not send it to town to meet her. But she had her pride, as she expressed it, and in consequence did not arrive at The Garden till about four o'clock in the day, having given the young Constables and the young Lennoxes time to have a very eager chat together, whilst Mrs Constable and Lennox himself had a serious conversation, in which they unanimously expressed the wish that Agnes Delacour would take her departure as soon as possible.
Miss Delacour arrived on the scene in a very bad temper. She was met by Lennox with his beautiful smile and courtly manner. He welcomed her kindly, and gave her his arm to enter the great central hall. Miss Delacour sniffed as she went in. She sniffed more audibly as her small, closely set brown eyes encountered the fixed gaze of five little girls, who, to judge from their manners, were all antagonistic to her.
'Come and speak to your aunt, my dears,' she said.—'George,' she continued, 'I should be glad of some tea.'
'It isn't time for tea yet,' said Hollyhock, but I 'll amuse you. Would you like to see a girl somersaulting up and down the hall? It's a grand place for that sort of exercise, and I can teach you if you like. You are a bit old, but I've seen older. You just have to let yourself go—spread yourself, so to speak—put your hands on the floor and then over you go, over and over. Oh, it's grand sport; we often do it.'
'Then you might do better,' said Miss Delacour, speaking in a very stern voice. 'I haven't quite caught your name, child, but you have evidently not learned respect for your elders.'
'My name is Hollyhock. I 'm a Scots lass frae the heather. Eh, but there's no air like the air o' the heather! Did you ever get a bit of it, all white? Yes, there's luck for you.'
'Do you mean seriously to tell me, George,' said Miss Delacour, 'that you have called that child Hollyhock—that impertinent, rude child, Hollyhock?'
'Well, yes, he has, bless his heart!' said Hollyhock, going up to her father and fondling his head. 'Isn't he a bit of a sort of a thing that you 'd love? Eh, but he's a grand man. He isn't afflicted with bad looks, Aunt Agnes.'
'Send that child out of the room, George,' said Aunt Agnes.