’You have to do your duties all the same, and not worry your mother and all the family with your feelings,’ he said.  She thought it very unkind, and went away crying.

‘Nobody could hinder her from thinking about Kalliope,’ she said to herself, and think she did at her prayers, and when the bulletins came in, but the embargo on discussion prevented her from being so absolutely engrossed, as in weaker hands she might have been, and there was a great deal going on to claim her attention.  For one thing, the results of the Cambridge Examination showed that while Emma Norton and a few others had passed triumphantly, she had failed, and conscience carried her back to last autumn’s disinclination to do just what Aunt Jane especially recommended.

She cried bitterly over the failure, for she had a feeling that success there would redeem her somewhat in her parents’ eyes; but here again she experienced the healing kindness of her father.  He would not say that he should not have been much pleased by her success, but he said failure that taught her to do her best without perverseness was really a benefit; and as arithmetic and mathematics had been her weakest points, he would work at them with her and Mysie for an hour every morning.

It was somewhat formidable, but the girls soon found that what their father demanded was application, and that inattention displeased him much more than stupidity.  His smile, though rare, was one of the sweetest things in the world, and his approbation was delightful, and gave a stimulus to the entire day’s doings.  Mysie was more than ever in dread of being handed over to the Rotherwoods, though her love for poor Fly and pity for her solitude were so strong.  She would have been much relieved if she had known what had passed; when the offer was seriously made, Lord Rotherwood insisted that his wife should do it.

‘Then they will believe in it,’ he said.

‘I do not know why you should say that,’ she returned, always dutifully blinding herself to that which all their intimates knew perfectly well.  However, perhaps from having a station and dignity of her own, together with great simplicity, Lady Merrifield had from her first arrival got on so well with her hostess as not quite to enter into Jane’s sarcastic descriptions of her efforts at cordiality; and it was with real warmth that Lady Rotherwood begged for Mysie as a permanent companion and adopted sister to Phyllis, who was to be taken back to London after Easter, and in the meantime spent every possible moment with her cousins.

Tears at the unkindness to lonely Fly came into Lady Merrifield’s eyes as she said—–­

’I cannot do it, Victoria; I do not think I ought to give away my child, even if I could.’

‘It is not only our feelings,’ added Sir Jasper, ’but it is our duty to bring up our own child in her natural station; and though we know she would learn nothing but good in your family, I cannot think it well that a girl should acquire habits, and be used to society ways and of life beyond those which she can expect to continue.’