"How long ago was it, mamma?"

"At least twenty years. It was while we were in Malta."

"Who would have thought of those dear Stokesley cousins having such a
skeleton in their cupboard?"

"Ah! my dear, no one knows the secrets of others' hearts."

"And you really think that this Miss Prescott was his love?"

"I know it was the same name, and Bessie told me that he used to talk
to her of his Magdalen, or Maidie; and when I heard of your meeting
her at Castle Towers I wondered if it were the same. And now I see
what she is, and what she is undertaking for these young sisters; I
have wondered whether your uncle was wise to insist on the utter
break, and whether she might not have been an anchor to hold him fast
to his moorings."

"Only," said Mysie, "if he had really cared, would he have let his
father break it off so entirely?"

"I think your uncle expected implicit obedience."

"But--," said Mysie, and left the rest unsaid, while both she and her
mother went off into meditations on different lines on the exigencies
of parental discipline and of the requirements of full-grown hearts.

And, on the whole, the younger one was the most for strict obedience,