Jacinth, 'I think I like Honor as much as any.'

Frances was listening with the greatest interest; her mouth half-open,
her knife and fork suspended in their operations. Lady Myrtle caught
sight of her absorbed face and smiled.

'Have _you_ any friend you would like to ask to come here some day?' she
said, kindly. 'If it were summer it would be different; we might have a
strawberry feast.'

Frances grew crimson, painfully crimson.

'Oh _how_ silly she is!' thought Jacinth.

'Thank you,' stammered Frances. 'I--I don't know. I don't think so.'

'Come, you must think it over,' said Lady Myrtle, imagining the child
was consumed with shyness. 'Who are your favourite friends, or have you
any special favourites?'

'Yes,' replied Frances, in an agony, increased by the consciousness of
Jacinth's eye, but fully remembering, too, that in replying truthfully
she was violating no confidence; 'yes, I'm much the fondest of Bessie
and Margaret, but they mightn't come. I don't think it would be any use
inviting any of them, except a big one like Honor, thank you.'

'Ah! well I know Miss Scarlett is strict, and rightly so, I daresay,'
said the old lady. 'Who are these friends of yours--Bessie and Margaret
what?'

'Bessie and Margaret Harper,' said Frances, bluntly; 'that's their
name.'

A look of perplexity crossed Lady Myrtle's face. 'Harper,' she repeated.
'Bessie and Margaret Harper. No, I never heard of them. But
still'----And the lines on her face seemed visibly to harden. 'Ah well,
I will only ask Honor Falmouth then. You must see about it, Jacinth, and
let me know when I should write to her or to Miss Scarlett.'

And then they talked of other things, Jacinth exerting herself doubly,
to prevent Lady Myrtle's noticing Frances's silence and constraint. But
afterwards, when they were by themselves for a moment, she took her
sister to task.

'Why did you speak of the Harpers?' she said; 'and why, still worse, if
you thought you shouldn't have named them, did you look so silly and
ashamed as if you had done something wrong? I daresay you felt
uncomfortable because, as Aunt Alison said, there have been such
disagreeables in Lady Myrtle's family, and these Harpers may be some
relations of hers. But--couldn't you have managed not to mention them?'

Frances looked quite as distressed as Jacinth could have expected--or
more so. 'I'm sure I didn't mean to speak of them,' she said. Her
meekness disarmed Jacinth.

'Well never