'And, indeed, Connie, I don't think dear Gillian and Mysie
feel at all unkindly to their cousin.'
'Ah! that's just like you, Mary. You never see more than the outside,
but then I am in dear Dolly's confidence.'
'What do you mean, Connie?' said Miss Hacket, eagerly.
Constance had come home from school with the reputation of being much
more accomplished than her elder sister, who had grown up while her
father was a curate of very straitened means, and thus, though her
junior, she was thought wonderfully superior in discernment and
everything else.
'Well,' said Constance, 'what do you think of Lady Merrifield sending
her to bed for staying late here that morning?'
'That was strict, certainly; but you know she sent Mysie too. It was
all my own thoughtlessness for detaining them,' said the good elder
sister. 'I was so grieved!'
'Yes,' said Constance, 'it sounds all very well to say Mysie was
treated in the same way, but in the afternoon Mysie was allowed to go
and make messes with blackberry jam, while poor Dolly was kept shut up
in the schoolroom!'
Constance did not like Lady Merrifield, who had unconsciously snubbed
some of her affectations, and nipped in the bud a flirtation with
Harry, besides calling off some of the curates to be helpful. But Miss
Hacket admired her neighbour as much as her sister would permit, and
made answer--
'It is so hard to judge, my dear, without knowing all. Perhaps Mysie
had finished her lessons.
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