She was too unpractical to guess at the truth—which Jacinth had thought it useless to mention as a part of Miss Falmouth's information—that their parents could no longer afford to pay for them.
'For to be gentlepeople, as they undoubtedly are in every sense of the word,' the girl had said, 'they are really awfully poor. I have heard so from some people who know them at that place where they live. It is quite a little seaside place, where people who want to be quiet go for bathing in the summer. But the Harpers live there all the year round. It must be fearfully dull.'
'Yes,' Jacinth agreed, 'it can't be lively. Still, being poor isn't the only trouble in the world.'
'No,' Miss Falmouth replied, 'but I fear they have others too. Captain Harper is so delicate.'
Jacinth said no more. Honor Falmouth was a kind-hearted but not particularly thoughtful girl, and she forgot all about the Harpers in five minutes. Her visit to Robin Redbreast had never come to pass, and Jacinth did not very specially regret it. She liked best to be alone with Lady Myrtle. So the relationship of the young Harpers to the old lady had never come to Honor's knowledge, as it might perhaps have done if her attention had been drawn to Lady Myrtle by visiting at her house. And at Christmas Honor was leaving school.
