There was not much said of the plans and doings in Mrs. Polkington’s letter, but a little crept in almost without the writer’s knowledge, enough to rouse Julia’s suspicions.  Why, she asked herself, was her mother suddenly enamoured with the beauty of Chippendale furniture?  How did she know that Sturt’s (the tailor’s) prices were lower for costumes this season?  And in what way had she become aware what the Ashton’s last parlour-maid thought, if she had not engaged that young woman for her own service?  Julia was at once uneasy and disgusted; the last alike with the proceedings themselves and the attempt to deceive her about them.  And another letter she received at the same time did not make her any more satisfied; it was from Johnny Gillat, about as silly and uninforming a letter as ever man wrote, but it contained one piece of information.  Mr. Gillat was going to have a great excitement in the early autumn—­Captain Polkington was coming to London, perhaps for as long as three months.  Johnny did not know why; he thought perhaps to have some treatment for his rheumatism; Mrs. Polkington had arranged it.  Julia did know why, and the short-sightedness of the policy roused her contempt.  To thus put the family drawback out of the way, and leave him to his own devices and Mr. Gillat’s care, seemed to her as unwise towards him as it was unkind to Johnny.  She would have written that minute to expostulate with her mother if she had not just then been called away.

These two disturbing letters arrived on the day that Joost came home from Germany, after the English mail for the day had gone.  Julia comforted herself with this last fact when she was called before she had time to write to her mother; she could write when she went to bed that night; the letter would go just as soon as if it was written now; so she went to answer Mevrouw’s summons to admire the carved crochet hook her son had brought her as a present from Germany.  Joost had brought several small presents besides the crochet hook, a pipe for his father, and two other trifles—­a small vase and a photograph of a plant which was the pride of the Berlin gardens that year—­an aloe, no yucca, but one of the true rare blooming sort, in full flower.  Julia was asked to take her choice of these two; she chose the photograph because it seemed to her much more characteristic of the giver, and also because it was easier to put away.  She had no idea of pleasing Joost by so doing; to tell the truth she hardly felt desirous of pleasing him, for though she had refrained from taking his blue daffodil and was in a way satisfied that she had done so, she did not feel exactly grateful to him for unconsciously standing between her and it, from which some may conclude that virtue was not an indigenous plant with Julia.

When Denah arrived after dinner she was given the vase.  Before Joost went away she had expressed in his hearing a wish that she had something from Berlin; she had said it rather pronouncedly as one might express a desire for a bear from the Rocky Mountains, or a ruby from Burmah; she could hardly have received one of those with more enthusiasm than she did the vase.  She admired it from every point of view and thanked Joost delightedly; the delight, however, was a little modified when Mijnheer let slip the fact that Julia also had a present from Berlin.