'I suppose so,' replied Mrs Mildmay. 'Even if Lady Myrtle wished it—as indeed I am sure she does—it would hardly be worth while for us to go to her for only two or three days, which is all the leave your father could get. And there are a good many things we have to see to here.'
'Yes,' said Frances, 'there's the Christmas treat for the barracks children. It's never been properly done. And Miss Lettice Piers is going to invite us to their treat at St Wilfred's first, so that we may see. I'd like best to have our visits to Robin Redbreast in the summer, except that it must be rather dull for Lady Myrtle. She was so pleased to have us there last Christmas.'
'I wish we could have her here,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'But she would never be allowed to come up north in the winter.'
Jacinth sighed.
'It seems a good while since we heard from Lady Myrtle,' she said. 'I hope she's not ill. I did think she would have tried to get us there for Christmas.'
'I don't think she can be ill,' said Mrs Mildmay, 'for your aunt would have known it. She goes to see Lady Myrtle regularly. I shall be hearing from Alison in a day or two, however.'
'Jassie,' said Frances, a moment or two later, when their mother had left the room, 'I wish you wouldn't look so melancholy. Just think what a lot of nice things have come to us, as well as the sad ones. Just fancy how we should have been ready to jump out of our skins for joy if we had known, when we left Stannesley, how soon papa and mamma would be at home with us.'
'I know,' said Jacinth. 'I do try to think of all that. But I do so dislike this gloomy place, Francie, and I think papa looks so fagged, and we have scarcely any friends we care for; the people are all so stupid, and so'——
'So what?'
'So rich,' said Jacinth, rather at a loss apparently what crime to lay at the doors of the good folk of the manufacturing town who had incurred her displeasure.