Wild Heather. Meade L. T.

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СКАЧАТЬ went wrong again with my grammar – "will have fair gales and a prosperous sail when we are returning to India."

      He thrust his head out of the carriage window when I said this, and when he put it back again I noticed that for some reason his face was as red as ever.

      Aunt Penelope's name was Penelope Despard, and she lived in a pretty little place outside a pretty little town about fifty miles away from Southampton. We got out at the station, which was called Cherton, and there a cab awaited us, which had evidently been sent by order, and some luggage was put on the roof. I was too excited by then to make any comment with regard to the luggage, although I noticed it afterwards and observed that it was all marked "H. G.," and there was nothing marked "G. G.," for father's name was Gordon Grayson. I said to father, as we got into the cab:

      "I do wonder when Anastasia's train will arrive." And he said:

      "So do I. I must make inquiries presently." But although I expected him to make these inquiries at once he did not do so, and the cab started off in the direction of Miss Despard's cottage.

      Miss Penelope Despard lived in a little house with a little garden attached. The little house went by the name of Hill View, and the garden and tiny lawn were very pretty and very neatly kept. But I was accustomed to big things – that is, except on board ship, when, of course, I had the sea to look at, which seemed to go on for ever and ever. So I was not excited about Aunt Penelope's garden. Father's face continued to be very red. He held my hand and took me up the neatly-kept gravel walk, and pushed a very brightly-polished brass button, which was instantly answered by a neat-looking boy, with a perfectly round face, in buttons.

      "Is Miss Despard in?" asked father. And then a lady in spectacles came out of a room at one side of a narrow hall, and father said:

      "Hallo, Penelope! It is years since we met, and, Penelope, this is Heather. Heather, my darling, here is your Aunt Penelope."

      "I hope you are a good child and do what you are told always," said Aunt Penelope.

      She spoke in a very prim voice, and stooping down, kissed me, hurting my face as she did so with the rim of her spectacles. I disliked her on the spot and told her so with the frank eyes of a child, although I was not quite rude enough to utter any words by my lips.

      "Well, Gordon," said my aunt, "you were a little late, and I was beginning to fear that you had missed your train. We shall just have time to arrange everything before you return to Southampton."

      "I am going to London to-night," said father.

      "Well, well, it really doesn't matter to me. Child, don't stare."

      I looked away at once. There was a parrot in a cage, and the parrot said, in his shrill voice at that moment: "Stop knocking at the door."

      I burst into a peal of laughter and ran towards him. I was about to approach his cage with my finger, when Aunt Penelope said:

      "He bites."

      I did not want him to bite my finger, for his beak was so sharp. So I said:

      "Please, Aunt Penelope, are you aunt also to Anastasia?"

      "I have never heard of her," said Aunt Penelope. "Little girls should be seen and not heard."

      At that moment the parrot again shouted out, "Stop knocking at the door," and I was so amused by him that I did not mind Aunt Penelope. After all, nothing much mattered, for I would be going to London immediately with Daddy.

      I stood and stared at the parrot, hoping much that he would speak again. The parrot cocked his head to one side and looked at me, but he did not utter a word.

      "Speak, oh! do speak," I said in a whisper; the parrot turned his back on me.

      Aunt Penelope said, "Sit down, Heather."

      CHAPTER II

      A few minutes later we went into another room to lunch. It was a very small room, smaller than many of the state cabins on board the good ship Pleiades. There was a little table in the centre of the room, and there were places for three laid at the table. Opposite to me was a milk pudding, and opposite to Aunt Penelope was a tureen of soup, and opposite to Daddy I really forget what. The boy in buttons came up and helped me to a portion of pudding.

      "I don't like it," I said at once. "Take it away, please, boy."

      Aunt Penelope said: "Leave the pudding where it is, Jonas. Heather, my dear, you must invariably eat what is put before you. I consider milk pudding proper food for little girls, and had this made on purpose for you."

      "But I hate milk puddings, Aunt Penelope," I answered, "and I never, never eat them."

      "The child is accustomed to feed as I do," said my father, speaking in a harsh, grating sort of voice, and avoiding my eyes.

      "Well, in future," said Aunt Penelope, "she will eat as I want her to eat. I must bring her up in my way or not at all, Gordon."

      "Eat your pudding like a darling," said my father, and as Aunt Penelope had really made a most silly speech, for father and I were leaving for London almost immediately, I ate the horrid pudding just to please him.

      When lunch was finished, Aunt Penelope went up to father and spoke to him. He nodded, and I noticed that his face was very pale. Then he said:

      "Perhaps so; perhaps it is the best thing." Then, all of a sudden, he stooped and took me in his arms and pressed me very, very close to his heart, and let me down on the floor rather suddenly. The next minute he had taken half-a-crown out of his pocket.

      "Your Aunt Penelope and I want to have a little private talk," he said, "and I was thinking that you might – or rather your aunt was thinking that you might – go out for a walk with Buttons."

      "His name is Jonas," said Aunt Penelope.

      "I beg his pardon – with Jonas – and he will take you to a toy shop. You have never seen any English toys, and you might buy a new doll with this."

      "I'd like to buy some sort of toy," I answered, "but I don't want dolls – I hate them. Can I buy a parrot, do you think, and would he talk to me? I'd rather like that, and it would be great, great fun to have him when we are sailing back with gentle gales and a prosperous sail to darling India."

      "Well, go and buy something, darling," said father, and I nodded to him brightly and went out of the room.

      Buttons, as I continued to call him in my own heart, for I could not get round his other name of Jonas, was really quite agreeable. He took me away to a high part of the town and very far from the shops, and on to a wild stretch of moor; here he told me all kinds of extraordinary stories about rats and cats and mice and caterpillars. He confided the fact to me that he kept white mice in his attic bedroom, but that if Miss Despard found it out he would be sent about his business on the spot. He implored me to be extremely secret with regard to the matter, and I naturally promised that I would.

      "You need not fear, Buttons," I said. "Ladies, who are true ladies, never repeat things when they are asked not."

      "And you are a real, true lady, missy," was his answer.

      He further promised to enlighten me with regard to the method of producing silk from silk-worms, and told me what fun it was to wind the silk off the big yellow cocoons.

      "I think," I said, "I should like that СКАЧАТЬ