’Yes, yes, I heard!  We can’t have it out now.  Here’s papa! she is upset about these misadventures,’ added Lady Merrifield, looking up to her husband, who stood amazed at the sobs that greeted him.

‘You must control yourself, Gillian,’ he said gravely.  ’Stop that!  Your mother is tired, and has to dress!  Don’t worry her.  Go, if you cannot leave off.’

The bracing tone made Gillian swallow her tears, the more easily because of the familiarity of home atmosphere, confidence, and protection; and a mute caress from her mother was a promise of sympathy.

The sense of that presence was the chief pleasure of the short evening, for there were too many claimants for the travellers’ attention to enable them to do more than feast their eyes on their son and daughters, while they had to talk of other things, the weddings, the two families, the home news, all deeply interesting in their degree, though not touching Gillian quite so deeply as the tangle she had left at Rockstone, and mamma’s view of her behaviour; even though it was pleasant to hear of Phyllis’s beautiful home in Ceylon, and Alethea’s bungalow, and how poor Claude had to go off alone to Rawul Pindee.  She felt sure that her mother was far more acceptable to her hostess than either of the aunts, and that, indeed, she might well be so!

Gillian’s first feeling was like Mysie’s in the morning, that nothing could go wrong with her again, but she must perforce have patience before she could be heard.  Harry could not be spared for another day from his curacy, and to him was due the first tete-a-tete with his mother, after that most important change his life had yet known, and in which she rejoiced so deeply.  ‘The dream of her heart,’ she said, ‘had always been that one of her sons should be dedicated;’ and now that the fulfilment had come in her absence, it was precious to her to hear all those feelings and hopes and trials that the young man could have uttered to no other ears.

Sir Jasper, meantime, had gone out on business, and was to meet the rest at luncheon at his mother’s house, go with them to call on the Grinsteads, and then do some further commissions, Lady Rotherwood placing the carriage at their disposal.  As to ‘real talk,’ that seemed impossible for the girls, they could only, as Mysie expressed it, ‘bask in the light of mamma’s eyes’ and after Harry was gone on an errand for his vicar, there were no private interviews for her.

Indeed, the mother did not know how much Gillian had on her mind, and thought all she wanted was discussion, and forgiveness for the follies explained in the letter, the last received.  Of any connection between that folly and the accident to Lord Rotherwood of course she was not aware, and in fact she had more on her hands than she could well do in the time allotted, and more people to see.  Gillian had to find that things could not be quite the same as when she had been chief companion in the seclusion of Silverfold.