’Ah!  I thought I might be excused.  Mamma was so uneasy—­though I know you don’t admit visitors—­my just coming to see—­We’ve been always so anxious about Gilbert.  Gibbie dear, where is that flannel I gave you for your throat?’

She advanced to put her finger within his neck-tie and feel for it.  Gilbert stuck his chin down, and snapped with his teeth like a gin.  Lucy exclaimed, ‘Now, Gilbert, I know mamma will say that is wrong.’

’Ah! we are used to Gilbert’s tricks.  Always bear with a boy’s antics,’ said Miss Meadows, preventing whatever she thought was coming out of Mrs. Kendal’s month.  Albinia took the unwise step of laughing, for her sympathies were decidedly with resistance both to flannels and to the insertion of that hooked finger.

’Mr. Bowles has always said it was a case for great care.  Flannel next the skin—­no exposure,’ continued Miss Meadows, tartly.  ’I am sure—­I know I am the last person to wish to interfere—­but so delicate—­You’ll excuse—­but my mother was uneasy; and people who go out in all weathers—­’

‘I hope Mrs. Meadows had my note this morning.’

’O yes!  I am perfectly aware.  Thank you.  Yes, I know the rule, but you’ll excuse—­My mother was still anxious—­I know you exclude visitors in lesson-time.  I’m going.  Only grandmamma would be glad—­ not that she wishes to interfere—­but if Gilbert had on his piece of flannel—­’

‘Have you, Gilbert?’ said Albinia, becoming tormented.

‘I have been flannel all over all my life,’ said Gilbert, sulkily, ‘one bit more or less can make no odds.’

’Then you have not that piece? said Albinia.

’Oh, my dear!  Think of that!  New Saxony!  I begged it of Mr. Holland.  A new remnant—­pink list, and all!  I said it was just what I wanted for Master Gilbert.  Mr. Holland is always a civil, feeling man.  New Saxony—­three shillings the yard—­and trimmed with blue sarsenet!  Where is it, Gilbert?’

‘In a soup dish, with a crop of mustard and cress on it,’ said Gilbert, with a wicked wink at Albinia, who was unable to resist joining in the girls’ shout of laughing, but she became alarmed when she found that poor Miss Meadows was very near crying, and that her incoherency became so lachrymose as to be utterly incomprehensible.

Lucy, ashamed of her laughter, solemnly declared that it was very wrong of Gilbert, and she hoped he would not suffer from it, and Albinia, trying to become grave, judicial, and conciliatory, contrived to pronounce that it was very silly to leave anything off in an east wind, and hoping to put an end to the matter, asked Aunt Maria to sit down, and judge how they went on with their lessons.

O no, she could not interrupt.  Her mother would want her.  She knew Mrs. Kendal never admitted visitors.  She had no doubt she was quite right.  She hoped it would be understood.  She would not intrude.  In fact, she could neither go nor stay.  She would not resume her seat, nor let anything go on, and it was full twenty minutes before a series of little vibrating motions and fragmentary phrases had borne her out of the house.