opportunity for what she had
to lay before her kind hostess as to the poor Harpers.

'We begin school again on Monday,' said Frances. 'I do hope it will be
fine till then. Jass, won't you stay with Eugene and me this afternoon?
We do so want to get the house we are building finished so that we can
have tea in it on Lady Myrtle's birthday.'

'Yes,' Mrs Mildmay interposed quickly, 'that will do very well, and
to-morrow perhaps Jassie may drive with you, Lady Myrtle, and then I
will invite myself to spend the afternoon with you two, shall I?'

Her quick tact, founded on sympathy, warned her of the possibility of
the elder girl feeling herself thrown out of the place she had naturally
come to feel as her own beside the old lady.

'And Lady Myrtle is so devoted to Jacinth too. She would miss her, even
though she would not like to seem to prefer her to me,' thought the
mother; and the expression in the two faces rewarded her for her
consideration.

Frances had her own ideas as to her mother's intentions in connection
with the proposed drive that afternoon. But she was already perfectly at
rest in the delightful certainty that 'mamma would know what was best to
do.' So, though deeply interested and in a sense anxious, she had no
nervous misgiving as to the result of the effort which she felt sure was
going to be made in behalf of her friends, and she spent the afternoon
very happily with her sister and brother, working at the famous house
they had been allowed to build in a corner of the garden. It was very
interesting, and even Jacinth, in some ways less 'grown-up' than she
liked to fancy herself, found it very absorbing. By half-past four
o'clock they had all worked so hard that they really began to be very
tired and rather hot.

'I wish it was tea-time,' said Jacinth. 'We are all to have tea together
while the holidays last. Lady Myrtle thought mamma would like it. And,
of course, you and Eugene, Francie, will come in at the end of dinner as
you did last night. I wonder why Lady Myrtle and mamma are so long. I
suppose they've gone a long drive.'

'They started rather late,' said Frances. 'Aunt Alison was talking to
Lady Myrtle a good while after the carriage was at the door. But I
wonder they're not back by now. Don't you think we'd better go in now
and get tidy, so as to be quite ready when they come?'

They did so. But for once Frances was the more expeditious of the two.
When Mrs Mildmay entered her own room on