’Oh!  I don’t wish for anything much—–­I don’t seem able to care now dear mamma is where they cease from troubling, and I have Alec again.’

’Well, I can’t help having great hopes.  I can’t see why that man should not make a daughter of you!  Then you would travel and see mountains and pictures and everything.  Oh, should you not like that?’

’Like?  Oh, one does not think about liking things impossible!  And for the rest, it is nonsense.  I should not like to be dependent, and I ought not.’

‘You don’t think what is to come next?’

’No, it would be taking thought for the morrow, would it not?  I don’t want to, while I can’t do anything, it would only make me fret, and I am glad I am too stupid still to begin vexing myself over it.  I suppose energy and power of considering will come when my heart does not flutter so.  In the meantime, I only want to keep quiet, and I hope that’s not all laziness, but some trust in Him who has helped me all this time.’

’Miss Gillian, you’ve clavered as long as is good for Miss White, and here are the whole clanjamfrie waiting in the road for you.  Now be douce, my bairn, and mind you are not in the woods at home, and don’t let the laddies play their tricks with Miss Primrose.’

‘I must go,’ said Gillian, hastily kissing Kalliope.  ’The others were going to call for me.  When Lady Phyllis was riding with her father she spied a wonderful field of daffodils and a valley full of moss at a place called Clipston, two miles off, and we are all going to get some for the decorations.  I’ll send you some.  Good-bye.’

The clanjamfrie, as Mrs. Halfpenny called it, mustered strong, and Gillian’s heart leapt at the resumption of the tumultuous family life, as she beheld the collection of girls, boys, dogs, and donkeys awaiting her in the approach; and, in spite of the two governesses’ presence, her mind misgave her as to the likelihood of regard to the hint that her mother had given that she hoped the elder ones would try to be sober in their ways, and not quite forget what week it was.  It was in their favour that Jasper, now in his last term at school, was much more of a man and less of a boy than hitherto, and was likely to be on the side of discretion, so that he might keep in order that always difficult element, Wilfred, whose two years of preparatory school as yet made him only more ingenious in the arts of teasing, and more determined to show his superiority to petticoat government.  He had driven Fergus nearly distracted by threatening to use all his mineralogical specimens to make ducks and drakes, and actually confusing them together, so that Fergus repented of having exhibited them, and rejoiced that Aunt Jane had let them continue in her lumber-room till they could find a permanent home.

Wilfred had a shot for Mrs. Halfpenny, when she came down with Gillian and looked for Primrose to secure that there were no interstices between the silk handkerchief and fur collar.