e reviewing far distant or far past
scenes.

At last, 'Thank you, my dear, for your candour,' she said. 'Well, leave
that question alone. I will help this family and at once, because it
seems to me a clear duty to do so. Can you not be satisfied with this
practical response to your appeal, my dear?'

'I thank you with all my heart,' said Mrs Mildmay earnestly, 'both for
your generosity and for your patience with my presumption.'

But she evaded a direct reply to Lady Myrtle's question, and her friend
did not press her farther.

The result of this conversation we have seen in the letter with its
enclosure which was posted that very evening. The former was not a
source of unmitigated satisfaction to Mrs Mildmay. For Lady Myrtle
insisted on the insertion of the last few lines.

It would not be honest, she maintained, to withhold the expression of
her true sentiments.

So with what she _had_ achieved, Mrs Mildmay was forced to be content,
though there were times during the next day or two in which she asked
herself if perhaps she had not done more harm than good? And times
again, when with the rebound of her naturally buoyant nature, she
allowed herself to hope that she had succeeded in inserting the thin
edge of the wedge; in 'making,' as she had expressed it to Francie, 'a
beginning towards more.'

CHAPTER XV.

LADY MYRTLE'S INTENTIONS.

And Francie, during those few days, was her mother's only confidante.
Various reasons made Mrs Mildmay decide not as yet to come upon the
subject with Jacinth. While still to all intents and purposes so much of
a stranger to her daughter, she felt anxious to avoid all sore or
fretted ground; all discussion which might lead her prematurely to judge
or misjudge Jacinth. To Lady Myrtle, of course, she said nothing of
this; but she suspected, as was indeed the case, that the old lady would
feel no inclination to talk about the Harpers to her young companion.
There were plenty of pleasanter things to talk about during the long
drives on which, on most alternate afternoons, Jacinth accompanied their
hostess; there were reminiscences of the past, always interesting to the
girl, awakened to fresh vividness by Mrs Mildmay's own recollections of
her mother and her own childhood; there were, more engrossing still,
plans for the future, when 'papa' should return and be skilfully
persuaded into renouncing India. And Lady Myrtle was nearly as great at
castle-in-the-air building as J