'No, but the Elvedons have another place in the north near your grandmother's old home,' said Miss Mildmay, who was very well posted up in such matters. 'They have never lived all the year round at Elvedon, I fancy, and now of course it is let.'
'Lady Myrtle's name used to be Harper, she told us,' said Frances, who never cared to be very long left out of the conversation, 'and there are some girls called Harper at our school. But Jacinth says it's quite a common name.'
'No, Frances, I didn't say that,' said Jacinth. 'I said it wasn't an uncommon name; that sounds quite different.'
'Possibly the Harpers at Miss Scarlett's may be some connection—distant, probably—of the Elvedons,' said Miss Mildmay, carelessly. 'But of course it is not, as Jacinth says, an uncommon name.'
But her remark set Frances's imagination to work.
'They are very, very nice girls—the nicest at the school,' she said. 'Their names are Bessie and Margaret. If you could only see them, Aunt Alison! I do so wish you would let us ask them to tea some Saturday.'
'Nonsense, child,' said Miss Mildmay, impatiently. 'I cannot begin things of that kind, as you might understand. You have companionship at school, and when you are at home you must be content with your own society. Now you must leave me: I have to see the cook, and I have made myself late already.'
'Frances,' said Jacinth on their way up-stairs to their own little sitting-room, 'I do think you are the silliest girl I ever knew. Just after all that discussion—and I can tell you I was shaking in my shoes for ever so long—just when it had ended so well, you must go and vex Aunt Alison by wanting to have the Harpers here at tea. I think you are absurd about those girls, as you always are about new friends. I don't want them here at tea, or at anything.'
'Well, I do, then, or rather I did,' said Frances doggedly. 'That's just all the difference. No girls have as dull a life as we have.'
'It's a very silly time for you to begin complaining, just when we have a chance of some amusement and change,' said Jacinth. 'I'm almost sure Lady Myrtle will ask us to spend the day, or something like that, very soon.'