'Oh no,' said Frances, 'she won't be at home when we get back. It's one of the days she's out all day—till after we're in bed, generally.'
'Dear me!' said Lady Myrtle, 'she must be a very busy person.'
'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'she is. She is very, very useful, I know. And one couldn't have expected her to give up all the things she'd been at so many years, all of a sudden, when we came. We don't mind, except that it seems a little lonely sometimes; but—I don't think Aunt Alison cares much for children or girls like us. She says she's got out of the way of it. But she's quite kind.'
'You have a governess, I suppose?' asked Lady Myrtle.
'No,' said Jacinth, 'we go every day but Saturday to Miss Scarlett's school.'
She coloured a little as she said it, for she had an instinct that 'school' for girls was hardly one of the things that her hostess had been accustomed to in her youth, and notwithstanding Jacinth's decision of character, she was apt to be much influenced by the opinions and even prejudices of those about her. But still she knew that Miss Scarlett's was really a somewhat exceptional school.
'To Miss Scarlett's,' repeated Lady Myrtle. 'I have heard of it. I believe it is very nice, but still—I prefer home education. But perhaps I should not say so. No doubt your parents and guardians have acted for the best. I should like you to tell Miss Alison Mildmay all I have asked you, and I will write to her. And in the meantime, that she may not think me too eccentric an old woman, pray tell her that I was—that your own grandmother—I like you to call her that—Lady Jacinth Moreland, afterwards Lady Jacinth Denison, and I, were the—yes, the very dearest of friends when we were young. It is possible that Miss Alison Mildmay may have heard my name from your mother. I think your mother—what is her name—"Eugenia," oh yes, I remember—I think your mother must have heard of me even in her childhood. My unmarried name was Harper, "Myrtle Harper;" your grandmother and I first took to each other, I think, because we had such uncommon names.'
'Harper!' exclaimed Frances eagerly, 'there are some—what is it, Jacinth?—I mean Bessie and Margar'——
'We must go,' said Jacinth, getting up, as she spoke. 'Frances, will you call Eugene? and'—turning to her hostess, 'thank you very much for being so kind. And oh, if you will ask Aunt Alison to let us come again, it would be such a pleasure.'
She raised her beautiful eyes to Lady Myrtle's face. A mist came over the keen bright old pair gazing at her in return. Partly perhaps to conceal this sudden emotion, Lady Myrtle stooped—for, tall though Jacinth was for her age, she was shorter than her grandmother's old friend—and kissed the soft up-turned cheek. 'My dear, you are so like her—my Jacinth, sometimes,' she murmured, 'that it is almost too much for me.'