“Oh, you won’t look quite so happy when you know! The Squire’s little girl was nice enough yesterday, but she seems to have changed her mind. ‘Other matters to attend to’—that is what that odious governess of hers said. Far too grand to notice us, of course.”
“I wish you would speak plain,” said Ralph. “I cannot get a scrap of sense out of that gabble of yours.”
“How rude you are!” said Susie. “You will be as gloomy as us when you know. Well, it is this: we are not to go to the Hall this afternoon. We are not to play with Phyllis. It was the governess who wrote—that odious woman; she signed herself ‘Josephine Fleet.’ She says that Phyllis had no right to invite us, and we are not to come. Pretty cheek, I call it. Well, if Phyllis does not want us, I’m sure we don’t want her.”
“But that is all very fine,” said Rosie; “I do want Phyllis. She promised me an old doll she had discarded, and she gave distinct hopes that we might have a baby-house of hers; and, anyhow, she is very jolly, and I did want to have a good time at the Hall. I call it horrid; I do indeed.”
“And so do I,” said Ned. “It is a precious big shame. But there, Ralph, we will go out rabbit-hunting this afternoon; I want to see if some of our snares have caught any.”
“You are horridly cruel about rabbits; you know you are,” said Rosie.
“Not at all; the sort of snare I have laid does not hurt any of them,” said Ned. “Come along, Ralph, won’t you?” But Ralph held back.
“Sorry I can’t,” he said; “other things to attend to.”
He spoke in a lofty tone, and the feel of the precious letter in his pocket made his heart throb.
The Hilchesters were not a patient family, and they fell upon Ralph tooth and nail. He was mean; he was shabby; he was hard-hearted; he did not care a bit for their disappointment; but nothing, nothing they could say altered the lad’s determination. They might amuse themselves: he had other fish to fry; he could not accompany any of them that afternoon. It was in vain to plead and catechise, and reproach and fight. Ralph stuck to his resolve. The early dinner at the Rectory was therefore a somewhat sorry affair, and Ralph was all too glad when it came to an end. He had now, if possible, to blind his very sharp sisters and brother. This was no easy matter. During dinner he made up his mind what he would do.