very
strange for me to speak like that; but, you don't know how I have been
teased about these Harpers. And mamma, Lady Myrtle doesn't look upon
them as you and papa do, so why should you expect me to do so? Do you
suppose she will leave _them_ anything she would have left us--me?'

'Very likely not,' said Colonel Mildmay.

'Then for everybody's sake, why not have left things as Lady Myrtle
meant? I--we, I mean,' and Jacinth's face crimsoned, 'could have been
good to them; it would have been better for them in the end.'

'Do you suppose they would have accepted help--money, to put it
coarsely--from strangers?' said Colonel Mildmay. 'It is not _help_ they
should have, but actual practical restoration of what should be theirs.
And even supposing our decision does them no good, can't you see,
Jacinth, that anything else would be _wrong_?'

'No,' said Jacinth, 'I don't see it.'

'Then I am sorry for you,' said her father coldly.

'I know,' said Jacinth, 'that Lady Myrtle likes things one way or
another. I suppose she will give us up altogether now. I suppose she
will leave off caring anything about me. You think very badly of me,
papa, I can see; you think me mercenary and selfish and everything
horrid; but--it _wasn't_ only for myself, and it isn't only because of
what she was doing for us, and meant to do for us. I have got to love
Lady Myrtle very much, and I shall feel dreadfully the never seeing her
any more, and--and'----

Here, not altogether to her mother's distress, Jacinth broke down and
began to sob bitterly. Mrs Mildmay got up from her seat, and came close
to where the girl was sitting by the table.

'My poor dear child,' she said, 'we have never thought you selfish in
_that_ sort of way.'

'No,' agreed her father; 'that you may believe. You have had of late too
much responsibility thrown upon you, and it has given you the feeling
that the whole fortunes of your family depended upon you in some sense.
Be content to be a child a little longer, my Jacinth, and to trust your
parents. And there is no need for you to anticipate any change with Lady
Myrtle. She will care for you, and for us all, as much as ever--more
perhaps; and as much time as it will be right for you to spend away from
your own home, you shall have our heartiest consent to spending with
her. If you can in any way give her pleasure--and I know you can--it
will be the very least we can do in return for her really wonderful
goodness to us.'