The first thing was to provide handsome mourning. Dora was
strangely quiet and sad through it all. The girls asked a
hundred questions about their father, whom they longed to see.
They knew he had left home in consequence of some quarrel with
his father--so much Lady Earle told them--but they never
dreamed that his marriage had caused the fatal disagreement; they
never knew that, for their mother's sake, Lady Earle carefully
concealed all knowledge of it from them.
Lady Earle reached the Elms one evening in the beginning of
September. She asked first to see Dora alone.
During the long years Dora had grown to love the stately, gentle
lady who was Ronald's mother. She could not resist her sweet,
gracious dignity and winning manners. So, when Lady Earle,
before seeing her granddaughters, went to Dora's room, wishing
for a long consultation with her, Dora received her with gentle,
reverential affection.
"I wish to see you first," said Lady Helena Earle, "so that we
may arrange our plans before the children know anything of them.
Ronald will return to England in a few months.
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