'Well,' she said, when Frances stopped, 'I told you I had read all mamma said.'
'Then why are you so angry with me?' demanded Frances bluntly. 'If I am a sort of an idiot, mamma is too.'
Jacinth did not reply.
'Mamma says you are not to attempt to interfere,' she said at last.
'I am not going to. I wouldn't do so for the Harpers' sake, much more than for Lady Myrtle's. The Harpers have trusted me, and I won't do anything they wouldn't like.'
'Well,' said Jacinth bitterly, 'you'd better write it all to mamma—all the horrid, calculating, selfish things I've said. You've got quite separated from me now, so that it really doesn't matter what you say of me.'
This was too much. Frances at last dissolved into tears and flung herself upon her sister, entreating her 'not to say such things,' to believe that nobody in the world—not Bessie or Margaret or anybody—could ever make up to her for her own dear Jass.
'You're not selfish,' she said. 'You're far more unselfish, really, than I am. For I never think of things. I see I've never thought enough of poor papa and mamma, and how hard it's been for them in many ways, though I did say to Bessie the other day that, whatever troubles they'd had, they'd not been parted from each other the way we've been.'
'I'm glad you said that,' Jacinth condescended to say, 'just to let them see that they're not the only people in the world who have to bear things.'
'Oh, they don't think that,' said Frances. 'And Jass,' she went on, encouraged by her sister's softer tone, and encircling her neck fondly with her two arms as she sat, half on Jacinth's knee, half on the edge of her chair, 'I don't quite see why being sorry for the poor Harpers, and—and—wishing we could make Lady Myrtle feel so too, need make her leave off being kind to us too. That's how mamma sees it. I am not only thinking of the Harpers, Jass; indeed, I'm not. I'm looking forward more than I can tell you to what you said—that when papa and mamma come home, Lady Myrtle is going to invite us all to stay with her. Oh, it would be lovely!' and the little girl clasped her hands together. 'All the same,' she went on, 'I don't think I want ever to go to Robin Redbreast till that time comes. I can't feel natural there, and I'm afraid of vexing you or doing harm somehow.'