What further revelations the damsel might be contemplating, in regard to her mother, were summarily cut short. Harry Castlemaine had entered in time to hear what she was saying, and he quietly lifted her from the room. Outside, he treated her to what she dreaded, though it was not often she got it from him--a severe shaking--and she ran away howling.
"She is being ruined," said Harry. "Mrs. Castlemaine never corrects her, or allows her to be corrected. I wish my father would take it seriously in hand! She ought to be at school."
Peace restored, Mary told them what she had just been telling Mr. Castlemaine. She was about to become a Grey Sister. Harry laughed: he did not believe a syllable of it; Ethel, more clear-sighted, burst into tears.
"Don't, don't leave us!" she whispered, clinging to Mary, in her astonishment and distress. "You see what my life is here! I am without love, without sympathy. I have only my books and my music and my drawings and the sea! but for them my heart would starve. Oh, Mary; it has been so different since you came: I have had you to love."
Mary Ursula put her arm round Ethel. She herself standing in so much need of love, had felt the tender affection of this fresh young girl, already entwining itself around her heart, as the grateful tree feels the tendrils of the clinging vine.
"You will be what I shall most regret in leaving Greylands' Rest, Ethel. But, my dear, we can meet constantly. You can see me at the Nunnery when you will; and I shall come here sometimes."
"Look here, Mary Ursula," said Harry, all his lightness checked. "Sooner than you should go to that old Nunnery, I'll burn it down."
"No, you will not, Harry."
"I will. The crazy old building won't be much loss to the place, and the ruins would be picturesque."
He was so speaking only to cover his real concern. The project was no less displeasing to him than to his father.