“Oh, very well; then there’s an end of it.  I am sorry for you, Fanny.”

And away walked Rachel, and as she went towards the gate two artificial jets d’eau, making a considerable curve in the air, alighted, the one just before her, the other, better aimed, in the back of her neck.  She had too much dignity to charge back upon the offenders, but she went home full of the story of Fanny’s lamentable weakness, and prognostications of the misery she was entailing on herself.  Her mother and sister were both much concerned, and thought Fanny extremely foolish; Mrs. Curtis consoling herself with the hope that the boys would be cured and tamed at school, and begging that they might never be let loose in the park again.  Rachel could not dwell much longer on the matter, for she had to ride to Upper Avon Park to hold council on the books to be ordered for the book-club; for if she did got go herself, whatever she wanted especially was always set aside as too something or other for the rest of the subscribers.

Mrs. Curtis was tired, and stayed at home; and Grace spent the afternoon in investigations about the harrying of the thrushes, but, alas! without coming a bit nearer the truth.  Nothing was seen or heard of Lady Temple till, at half-past nine, one of the midges, or diminutive flies used at Avonmonth, came to the door, and Fanny came into the drawing-room—­wan, tearful, agitated.

“Dear Rachel, I am so afraid I was hasty, I could not sleep without coming to tell you how sorry I am.”

“Then you are convinced?  I knew you would be.”

“Oh, yes, I have just been sitting by him after he was gone to bed.  He never goes to sleep till I have done that, and he always tells me if anything is on his mind.  I could not ask him again, it would have been insulting him; but he went over it all of himself, and owned he ought not to have put a finger on the edge of the nest, but he wanted so to see what it was lined with; otherwise he never touched it.  He says, poor boy, that it was only your being a civilian that made you not able to believe him, I am sure you must believe him now.”

Mrs. Curtis began, in her gentle way, about the difficulty of believing one’s children in fault, but Lady Temple was entirely past accepting the possibility of Conrade’s being to blame in this particular instance.  It made her bristle up again, so that even Rachel saw the impossibility of pressing it, and trusted to some signal confutation to cure her of her infatuation.  But she was as affectionate as ever, only wanting to be forgiven for the morning’s warmth, and to assure dear Aunt Curtis, dear Grace, and dearest Rachel in particular, that there was no doing without them, and it was the greatest blessing to be near them.

“Oh! and the squirting, dear Rachel!  I was so sorry when I found it out, it was only Francie and Leo.  I was very angry with them for it, and I should like to make them ask pardon, only I don’t think Francie would.  I’m afraid they are very rude boys.  I must write to the Major to find me a governess that won’t be very strict with them, and if she could be an officer’s daughter, the boys would respect her so much more.”