'Come, you must think it over,' said Lady Myrtle, imagining the child was consumed with shyness. 'Who are your favourite friends, or have you any special favourites?'
'Yes,' replied Frances, in an agony, increased by the consciousness of Jacinth's eye, but fully remembering, too, that in replying truthfully she was violating no confidence; 'yes, I'm much the fondest of Bessie and Margaret, but they mightn't come. I don't think it would be any use inviting any of them, except a big one like Honor, thank you.'
'Ah! well I know Miss Scarlett is strict, and rightly so, I daresay,' said the old lady. 'Who are these friends of yours—Bessie and Margaret what?'
'Bessie and Margaret Harper,' said Frances, bluntly; 'that's their name.'
A look of perplexity crossed Lady Myrtle's face. 'Harper,' she repeated. 'Bessie and Margaret Harper. No, I never heard of them. But still'——And the lines on her face seemed visibly to harden. 'Ah well, I will only ask Honor Falmouth then. You must see about it, Jacinth, and let me know when I should write to her or to Miss Scarlett.'
And then they talked of other things, Jacinth exerting herself doubly, to prevent Lady Myrtle's noticing Frances's silence and constraint. But afterwards, when they were by themselves for a moment, she took her sister to task.
'Why did you speak of the Harpers?' she said; 'and why, still worse, if you thought you shouldn't have named them, did you look so silly and ashamed as if you had done something wrong? I daresay you felt uncomfortable because, as Aunt Alison said, there have been such disagreeables in Lady Myrtle's family, and these Harpers may be some relations of hers. But—couldn't you have managed not to mention them?'
Frances looked quite as distressed as Jacinth could have expected—or more so. 'I'm sure I didn't mean to speak of them,' she said. Her meekness disarmed Jacinth.
'Well never mind,' she said reassuringly. 'I daresay Lady Myrtle didn't notice; at least, if she did, she couldn't have thought you knew anything about her family affairs. I don't want to hear about them; I'd rather not know what sort of relations the Harpers are, or if they're any. Don't think any more about them.'
And with this, Frances had to be or to appear content. But besides the little Jacinth knew, she had her own sorer feelings. Though Bessie and Margaret had scrupulously carried out the advice, Frances could see, they had received from home, and while as affectionate as ever to her, refrained from the very slightest allusion to family affairs or even to Robin Redbreast, yet, now that her eyes were opened as it were, Frances noticed many things that had not struck her before. As the season advanced and the weather grew colder, most of the girls appeared in new and comfortably warmer garments, for Thetford stands high and is a 'bracing' place. Well-lined ulsters, fur-trimmed jackets, muffs and boas, were the order of the day. But not so for Bessie and Margaret. They wore the same somewhat threadbare serges; the same not very substantial gray tweeds on Sundays, which had done duty since they came to school; the same little black cloth jackets out-of-doors, with only the addition of a knitted 'cross-over' underneath. And one day, admiring Frances's pretty muff, and congratulating her on the immunity from chilblains it must afford, poor little Margaret confided to her impulsively that she had never possessed such a treasure in her life.