the two ladies went home, Constance told her sister that 'dear little
Dolores was a remarkable character, sadly misunderstood among those
common-place people, the Merrifields, and unjustly used, too, and she
should do her best for her!'

Meantime Gillian, finding herself not wanted, had repaired to the
schoolroom.

'Oh, it is of no use,' sighed Mysie, disconsolately. 'I've ever so
much morning's work to make up, too. And I never shall! I've muzzled
my head!'

By which remarkable expression Mysie signified that fatigue, crying,
and dinner had made her brains dull and heavy; but Gillian was a
sensible elder sister.

'Don't try your sum yet, then,' she said. 'Practise your scales for
half an hour, while I do my algebra, and then we'll go over your German
verbs together. I'll tell Miss Vincent, and she wont' mind, and I
think mamma will be pleased if you try.'

Gillian was too much used to noises not to be able to work an equation,
and prepare her Virgil, to the sound of scales, and Mysie was a good
deal restored by them and by hope.

So when at length Constance had been summoned by her sister, who tore
herself away from the arrangements, being bound to five-o'clock tea
elsewhere, Mysie was discovered with a face still rather woe-begone,
but hopeful and persevering, and though there still was a 'bill of
parcels' where 11 and 3/4 lbs. of mutton at 13 and 1/2d. per lb.