Gillian shook her head, and drank water.  Her aunts went on talking, for they thought it better that she should get accustomed to the prospect; and, moreover, they were so much excited that they could hardly have spoken of anything else.  Aunt Jane wondered if Phyllis’s betrothed were a brother of Mr. Underwood of St. Matthew’s, Whittingtown, with whom she had corresponded about the consumptive home; and Aunt Ada regretted the not having called on Lady Liddesdale when she had spent some weeks at Rockstone, and consoled herself by recollecting that Lord Rotherwood would know all about the family.  She had already looked it out in the Peerage, and discovered that Lord Francis Cunningham Somerville was the only younger son, that his age was twenty-nine, and that he had three sisters, all married, as well as his elder brother, who had children enough to make it improbable that Alethea would ever be Lady Liddesdale.  She would have shown Gillian the record, but received the ungracious answer, ‘I hate swells.’

‘Let her alone, Ada,’ said Aunt Jane; ’it is a very sore business.  She will be better by and by.’

There ensued a little discussion how the veil at Silverfold was to be hunted up, or if Gillian and her aunt must go to do so.

‘Can you direct Miss Vincent?’ asked Miss Mohun.

’No, I don’t think I could; besides, I don’t like to set any one to poke and meddle in mamma’s drawers.’

‘And she could hardly judge what could be available,’ added Miss Ada.

‘Gillian must go to find it,’ said Aunt Jane; ’and let me see, when have I a day?  Saturday is never free, and Monday—­I could ask Mrs. Hablot to take the cutting out, and then I could look up Lily’s Brussels—–­’

There she caught a sight of Gillian’s face.  Perhaps one cause of the alienation the girl felt for her aunt was, that there was a certain kindred likeness between them which enabled each to divine the other’s inquiring disposition, though it had different effects on the elder and younger character.  Jane Mohun suspected that she had on her ferret look, and guessed that Gillian’s disgusted air meant that the idea of her turning over Lady Merrifield’s drawers was almost as distasteful as that of the governess’s doing it.

‘Suppose Gillian goes down on Monday with Fanny,’ she said.  ’She could manage very well, I am sure.’

Gillian cleared up a little.  There is much consolation in being of a little importance, and she liked the notion of a day at home, a quiet day, as she hoped in her present mood, of speaking to nobody.  Her aunt let her have her own way, and only sent a card to Macrae to provide for meeting and for food, not even letting Miss Vincent know that she was coming.  That feeling of not being able to talk about it or be congratulated would wear off, Aunt Jane said, if she was not worried or argued with, in which case it might become perverse affectation.

It certainly was not shared by the children.  Sisters unseen for three years could hardly be very prominent in their minds.  Fergus hoped that they would ride to the wedding upon elephants, and Valetta thought it very hard to miss the being a bridesmaid, when Kitty Varley had already enjoyed the honour.  However, she soon began to glorify herself on the beauty of Alethea’s future title.