'I should like to see her; to be with her sometimes,' said Jacinth,
whose sobs had now calmed down into quiet crying. 'But I don't
want--once we go away to that place--I don't want ever to see Robin
Redbreast again. Ever since'--and here she had to stop a moment--'ever
since that first day when we passed it with Uncle Marmy, I have had a
sort of feeling to this house--a kind of presentiment. I can't bear to
think of its going to strangers, or--or people that know nothing about
Lady Myrtle. And very likely, if she leaves all she has to big hospitals
or something like that, very likely this place will be sold.'

'It may be so,' said Colonel Mildmay; and he added with a smile, 'I wish
for your sake I were rich enough to buy it, my poor dear child.'

So Jacinth's castles in the air were somewhat rudely destroyed. There
was but one consolation to her. Lady Myrtle was even more loving than
hitherto, though she said nothing about the collapse of her plans. For
Mrs Mildmay gave her to understand that matters, so far as was fitting,
had been explained to her elder daughter.

'Humph!' said the old lady. 'That seals _my_ lips. For of course I
cannot express disapproval of her parents to the child.'

But her tenderness and marked affection went some way to soothe the
smarting of the girl's sore feelings.

'She understands me far better than papa and mamma do,' thought Jacinth.
'If they meant me to see everything through their eyes, they shouldn't
have left me away from them all these years.'

Still a curious strain of pride in her father's stern honesty, in his
utter disinterestedness, now and then mingled with her feelings of
disappointment. She could not help feeling proud of him! Nevertheless
the tears were many and bitter which Jacinth shed when the last night of
their stay at Robin Redbreast came.

CHAPTER XVII.

TWO DEGREES OF HONESTY.

Barmettle is not an attractive place; though like most places in this
varied world it has its interests and even no doubt its charm for many
of its inhabitants--its bright and happy homes, as well as its thousands
of hard, if not overworked, pale-faced artisans, men and women, of many
grades and classes.

And the sun can shine there sometimes; and not so many miles from the
very centre of the town, you can escape from the heavy pall of
smoke-filled air, into fresh and picturesque country, whose beauties, to
my thinking, strike one all the more vividly from the force of c