At that moment Aunt Adeline looked round, having succeeded in persuading Lady Flight that she had another engagement.  She saw a young woman in a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a dark fringe over a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to whom Gillian was eagerly talking.

‘Ah!’ she said, as Mr. Flight now came up from the vestry; ’do you know anything of that girl?’

‘Second-rate people, somewhere in Bellevue,’ said the lady.

‘The brother is my best tenor,’ said Mr. Flight.  ’She is very often at St. Kenelm’s, but I do not know any more of her.  The mother either goes to Bellevue or nowhere.  They are in Bellevue Parish.’

This was quite sufficient answer, for any interference with parochial visiting in the Bellevue district was forbidden.

Aunt Ada called to Gillian, and when she eagerly said, ’This is Kalliope, aunt,’ only responded with a stiff bow.

‘I do not know what these people might have been, Gillian,’ she said, as they pursued their way to Mrs. Webb’s; ’but—­they must have sunk so low that I do not think your mother can wish you to have anything to do with them.

‘Oh, Aunt Ada!  Kalliope was always such a good girl!’

‘She has a fringe.  And she would not belong to the G.F.S.,’ said Aunt Ada.  ’No, my dear, I see exactly the sort of people they are.  Your aunt Jane might be useful to them, if they would let her, but they are not at all fit for you to associate with.’

Gillian chafed inwardly, but she was beginning to learn that Aunt Ada was more impenetrable than Aunt Jane, and, what was worse, Aunt Jane always stood by her sister’s decision, whether she would have herself originated it or not.

When the elder aunt came home, and heard the history of their day, and Gillian tried to put in a word, she said—–­

’My dear, we all know that rising from the ranks puts a man’s family in a false position, and they generally fall back again.  All this is unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at, and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to be done till you can hear from Ceylon about them.’

Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.

‘It really was a horrid place,’ said Aunt Ada, when alone with her sister; ’and such a porpoise of a woman!  Gillian should not have represented her as a favourite.’

‘I do not remember that she did so,’ returned Aunt Jane.  ’I wish she had waited for me.  I have seen more of the kind of thing than you have, Ada.’

’I am sure I wish she had.  I don’t know when I shall get over the stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest friends.’

’Girls will be silly!  And there’s a feeling about the old regiment too.  I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient.  I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay of the family.’