Just then the sound of a bell coming up from the town below was a warning to both that the conversation must be broken off.  A few words—–­’I am so glad to have seen you,’ and ’It has been such a pleasure’—–­passed, and then each hastened down her separate garden path.

‘Must I tell of this meeting?’ Gillian asked herself.  ’I shall write it all to mamma and Alethea, of course.  How delightful that those lessons that Kalliope had have come to be of so much use!  How pleased Alethea will be!  Poor dear thing!  How much she has gone through!  But can there be any need to tell the aunts?  Would it not just make Aunt Ada nervous about any one looking through her sweet and lovely wall?  And as to Aunt Jane, I really don’t see that I am bound to gratify her passion for knowing everything.  I am not accountable to her, but to my own mother.  My people know all about Kalliope, and she is prejudiced.  Why should I be unkind and neglectful of an old fellow-soldier’s family, because she cannot or will not understand what they really are?  It would not be the slightest use to tell her the real story.  Mrs. White is fat, and Kalliope has a fringe, goes to St. Kenelm’s, and won’t be in the G.F.S., and that’s enough to make her say she does not believe a word of it, or else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in the way that drives one distracted!  It really is quite a satis-faction to have something that she can’t find out, and it is not underhand while I write every word of it to mamma.’

So Gillian made her conscience easy, and she did write a long and full account of the Whites and their troubles, and of her conversation with Kalliope.

In the course of that week Fergus had a holiday, asked for by some good-natured visitor of Mrs. Edgar’s.  He rushed home on the previous day with the news, to claim Aunt Jane’s promise; and she undertook so to arrange matters as to be ready to go with him to the marble works at three o’clock.  Valetta could not go, as she had her music lesson at that time, and she did not regret it, for she had an idea that blasting with powder or dynamite was always going on there.  Gillian was not quite happy about the dynamite, but she did not like to forego the chance of seeing what the work of Kalliope and Alexis really was, so she expressed her willingness to join the party, and in the meantime did her best to prevent Aunt Ada from being driven distracted by Fergus’s impatience, which began at half-past two.

Miss Mohun had darted out as soon as dinner was over, and he was quite certain some horrible cad would detain her till four o’clock, and then going would be of no use.  Nevertheless he was miserable till Gillian had put on her hat, and then she could do nothing that would content him and keep him out of Aunt Ada’s way, but walk him up and down in the little front court with the copper beeches, while she thought they must present to the neighbours a lively tableau of a couple of leopards in a cage.