'Yes,' her sister agreed. 'I think they're very nice. But they're rather babyish; you see they've always lived at home, and never had to depend on themselves at all. I think they're not at all rich.'
'That makes them all the nicer, I think,' said Frances. 'I don't know if it's always the way, but it certainly is at school—the richest girls aren't nearly as nice as some of the others.'
'Oh, that's nonsense,' said Jacinth. 'It may just happen that some of those we know to be richer are—well, rather commoner—but you can't make any rule about it.'
'I wish Aunt Alison would let us ask the Harpers to tea, sometimes,' said Frances. 'I'm almost sure Miss Scarlett would let them come.'
'But I'm more sure that Aunt Alison wouldn't like anything of the kind,' said Jacinth, and even she sighed a little. 'So it's no use thinking of it. I hope you're prepared for a good long walk this afternoon, Francie. It's a lovely day, and we've been so little out lately. We needn't do our lessons till to-morrow. Ah, there's Eugene!' as at that moment the boy came flying down the street to meet them. 'How have you got on to-day, old man?' she said, fondly. 'Would you like to go a good long walk this afternoon?'
Eugene went to a small boys' school, a few doors only from his aunt's. He was certainly the least to be pitied in the children's somewhat lonely life, for his sisters were devoted to him, and their affection made up to him for the absence of other love. Yet this sounds too severe on Miss Mildmay, who in her own undemonstrative way did love her nephew and nieces. But she had mapped out her life on lines independent of home ties, and she had not the breadth and nobility of nature to recognise that the charge unexpectedly laid upon her was as much a heaven-sent mission as the labours among the poor, which she fulfilled with such devotion and enthusiastic self-denial. Her 'duty,' her dry duty, she performed to the children, but it never entered her mind or imagination that more than this could, under the circumstances, be demanded of her.
'Oh yes,' Eugene replied. 'I'm game for as many miles as you girls, any way.'
His sisters burst out laughing. Their seven-years' old brother was developing fast.
'Where shall we go to, then?' said Jacinth, as they rang at their own door. 'I hope Phebe will be "game" too, Eugene, for we can't go without her, and she doesn't love very long walks.'
But Phebe proved to be in an unusually enterprising mood. She was a very good-natured girl, honest and well-principled, her only important fault being laziness, which her young charges did their best to conceal from Miss Mildmay.