'Not go!' said Miss Mildmay; 'of course you must go. It would be most ungrateful to Lady Myrtle, and would, besides, put Jacinth in a very disagreeable position. You are the grand-daughter of Lady Myrtle's old friend as well as Jacinth, even though her special interest may be in Jacinth.'
'It would make me look so selfish too,' said Jacinth, who, now that she felt sure of her own place with the old lady, was far from wishing to deprive Frances of her share in the pleasures and advantages of their acquaintance with Robin Redbreast.
So Frances had to give in.
And when the day came she enjoyed the visit, on the whole, very much.
'If only,' she said to herself before starting, 'if only I could have got mamma's letter in answer to mine before going. I would have known then exactly how to do about the Harpers. Of course I can't tell stories, and they would never have wanted me to do that. I only hope nothing will be said about school or about anything to do with them.'
Then she tried to recall the exact words of Camilla Harper's letter, by this time two-thirds on its way to India to her mother.
Jacinth said nothing at all about the Harpers in connection with Lady Myrtle, and Frances began to think her sister had forgotten all about the question of their possible relationship, which in the meantime at least the younger girl was not sorry for.
It was again a lovely day—the weather seemed to favour the visits to Robin Redbreast—even milder than the Saturday of Jacinth's first stay there. And this time, instead of the brougham, a large roomy pony carriage came to fetch them, a spring cart having already called for Jacinth's portmanteau that morning.
'How lovely!' said Frances, as she and Eugene took their seats with great satisfaction opposite her sister and the coachman; 'I am so glad it is an open carriage. I wish Lady Myrtle would send us home in it again this evening: don't you, Eugene?'
'I'm sure her ladyship will be quite pleased to do so, miss, if you just mention that you would like it,' said the man, a staid unexceptionable old servant, though many years younger than Thornley.