cost her so much to _keep away_ from us," says Terence.
"If she was dying for our society, she must indeed have sacrificed
herself, because she made it the business of her life to avoid us from
morn to dewy eve."

"Doubtless she had her duties," says Miss Penelope, in a voice of
suppressed fear. What is she going to hear next? what are these dreadful
children going to say?

"Perhaps she had," said Terence. "If so, they didn't agree with her, as
she was always in a bad temper. She used to give it to papa right and
left, until he didn't dare to call his soul his own. When I marry, I
shall take very good care my wife doesn't lead me the life my mother led
my father."

"_Your_ wife! who'd marry _you_?" says Kit, scornfully, which interlude
gives the discussion a rest for a little time. But soon they return to
the charge.

"Your mother when here had an angelic temper," says Miss Penelope. Miss
Priscilla all this time seems incapable of speech.

"Well, she hadn't when _there_," says Terence; and then he says a
dreadful thing, as vulgar as it is dreadful, that fills his aunt's heart
with dismay. "She and my father fought like cat and dog," he says; and
the Misses Blake feel their cup is indeed full.

"And she never would take Monica anywhere," says Kit; "so selfish!"

It is growing _too_ terrible. Is their idol to be shattered thus before
their eyes?

"Monica, was your mother _unkind_ to you?" says Miss Penelope, in a
voice full of anguish. After all these years, is the Katherine of their
affections to be dragged in the dust?

Monica hesitates. She can see the grief in her aunt's face, and cannot
bear to add to it. The truth is that the late Mrs. Beresford had _not_
been beloved by her children, for reasons which it will be possible to
conceive, but which would be tiresome to enumerate here. Perhaps there
seldom had been a more careless or disagreeable mother.

So Monica pauses, flushes, glances nervously from right to left, and
then back again, and finally rests her loving, regretful eyes full upon
Miss Penelope's agitated face.

Something she sees there decides her. Sinking to her knees, she flings
her arms around the old lady's neck, and lays her cheek to hers.

"I will say nothing, but that I am happy _here_," she says, in a low
whisper.

Miss Penelope's arms close round her. The worst has come to her; yet
there is solace in this clinging embrace, and in the dewy lips that
seek hers. If she has lost one i