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"But that would have been of no use, as it happens," Janey put in an unexpected and welcome ally to Miss Marlett "because you must have left Paddington long before the question could have reached you." This was unanswerable, as a matter of fact; and Miss Marlett could not repress a grateful glance in the direction of her wayward pupil.
See?" And clutching the piece in both hands, she buried her face in it, and began to devour it, much as a squirrel gnaws the meat out of a walnut. So absorbed was she in her enjoyment of her feast, that she did not hear the door open and Mrs. Pennypoker come into the kitchen. "Jane!" said the strong voice. Janey started at the sound, and choked on a seed.
She, the romantic Riette, banner of chivalry, reader of poetry, struck a line between poor and rich in her talk of people, and classed herself with the fallen and pinched; she harped on her slender means, on the enforced calculations preceding purchases, on the living in lodgings; and that miserly Lord Levellier's indebtedness to Chillon large sums! and Chillon's praiseworthy resolve to pay the creditors of her father's estate; and of how he travelled like a common man, in consequence of the money he had given Janey weakly, for her obstinacy was past endurance; but her brother would not leave her penniless, and penniless she had been for weeks, because of her stubborn resistance to the earl quite unreasonably, whether right or wrong in the foul retreat she had chosen; apparently with a notion that the horror of it was her vantage ground against him: and though a single sign of submission would place the richest purse in England at her disposal.
There was one boarder who made no pretence of learning music, and several day-scholars; of course, being French, they spoke French, but not a girl of them all, not madame herself, could frame three consecutive sentences in English to be understood. In the novelty of the situation Janey was patroness for the day.
"Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us," cried Janey, leaning on the back of his chair; "what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage like to-night, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald, can't you, can't you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for us."
"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this term; but there's one thing I'm not going to do any more, I'm not going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she does dress so!" concluded Janey. "Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She chooses her things herself," said Eva. "No!" exclaimed Janey.
He asked quite quietly after a while, "Where did you meet this young lady?" without any perceptible inflection of anger in his tone. "Why, papa," cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent, "everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know; Reginald, you know! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne."
Lady Alanby was polite to both of them, but she gave Nigel a rather sharp glance through her gold pince-nez as she greeted him. "Janey and Mary," she said to the two girls nearest her, "I daresay you will kindly change your chairs and let Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel sit next to me."
"What are you thinking about, Harry?" said his mother as she bustled about, getting Bobby and Frank, Lucy and Janey, washed and dried and put to bed in the tiny nursery at Briery Cottage, which indeed was very different from the one they had left at Rosehampton, though, with the usual happy taste of children, Lucy and Janey thought their narrow cribs ever so much nicer than the home ones; while Bobby and Frank considered the two skylights here infinitely preferable to the large bow-window they were accustomed to.
I think they're connected, so there, Nora you just wait and see when the mystery is all cleared up!" With that thought foremost in her mind, Janey at last, fell asleep. Bright and early after breakfast, the Merediths, bidding Aunt Janice good-bye, started out on their exploring expedition into the forest.
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