'That's just it,' said Frances, and by this time Lady Myrtle's attention was fully caught. 'Of course I don't mean to contradict you, Aunt Alison, but I do know they're the same family, and so they are relations of Lady Myrtle's. And it's not only that I like them. I'm so very sorry for them, so very sorry. They are all so good, and they have so very, very many troubles,' and here the irrepressible tears rose to poor Frances's eyes, and she turned her head away abruptly.
Lady Myrtle glanced at her and then at Jacinth. Jacinth's face was quiet and very grave.
'You are a very loyal friend, I see, Frances,' said the old lady; and rather to every one's surprise the words were accompanied by a little smile, and then she turned to Jacinth.
'I don't think you have ever named these—these Harpers—to me, have you, my dear?' she asked.
Jacinth looked up at once.
'No,' she said; 'I have not, and I have refrained from doing so on purpose. I—I did not think it concerned me, and you might not have liked it. I—I should be so sorry to vex you.'
The appeal in her eyes touched Lady Myrtle more than Frances's tears. And in what she said, so far as it went, Jacinth was sincere. She did shrink from any possible allusion that could annoy or upset her kind friend; and the selfish motives underlying the prejudice, almost amounting to positive dislike, which she had allowed to take root in her feelings to the Harpers, she blinded herself to, or called by some other name.
Lady Myrtle was silent, but there was no resentment in her face. She only looked sad—very, very sad.
'You know these girls very much less well than Frances did,' said Miss Mildmay, whose sympathies were just now all with Jacinth. 'You see,' she went on, turning to her hostess, 'Frances has been in the habit of spending holiday afternoons at school—sometimes when you had kindly invited Jacinth here, on a Saturday, for instance.'
Lady Myrtle started a little. Her thoughts had been far away. She leaned forward and took hold of Jacinth's hand—Jacinth was sitting next to her, and the servants had left the room—and patted it affectionately.