They had only meant to defend their little cousin, and had never
expected either that she would be so much overcome, or that she would
insist on their father knowing all, as she did with increasing anger
and grief at each of their attempts at persuading her to the
contrary. Caroline thought he ought to know. Her children's father
would have known long ago, but then his wrath would have been a
different thing from what seemed to be apprehended from his brother;
and she understood the distress of Jessie and John, though her pity
for Rob was but small. Whatever she tried to say in the way of
generous mediation or soothing only made it worse; and poor Ellen,
far from being her Serene Highness, was, between scolding and crying,
in an almost hysterical state, so that Caroline durst not leave her
or the frightened Jessie, and was relieved at last to hear the
Colonel coming into the house, when, thinking her presence would do
more harm than good, and longing to return to her little son, she
slipped away, and was joined at the door by her own John, who asked—-
"What's up, mother?"
"Did you know all about this dreadful business, Jock?"
"Afterwards, of course, but I was shut up in school, writing three
hundred disgusting lines of Virgil, or I'd have got the brutes off
some way.
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