Part 7 (2/2)

”Well, Heather,” said my father, ”what a wonderful day this must have been for you. Tell me how you felt about everything. You used to be such an outspoken little child. Didn't you just love the play, eh?”

”I loved the beginning of it,” I said.

”You naughty girl! You mean to say you didn't like the end--all that part about Rosalind when she comes on the stage as a boy?”

”I could not see it, father--I could only see the back of your head; and oh, father, your head is getting very bald, but the back of Lady Helen's head isn't bald at all--it is covered with thick, thick hair, which goes out very wide at the sides and comes down low on her neck.”

”It's my belief she wears a wig, Heather,” said my father, bending towards me. ”But we won't repeat it, will we, darling? So she and I took up all your view, poor little girl! Well, we did it in thoughtlessness.”

”I don't think she did,” I answered stoutly ”I think she wanted to talk to you.”

”She'll have plenty of time for that in the future,” he said; ”but tell me now, before we get to the hotel, what do you think of her ladys.h.i.+p?

She's a very smart-looking woman--eh?”

”I don't know what that means, father, but I don't like her at all.”

”You don't like her--why, child?”

”I can't say; except that I don't.”

”Oh, you mustn't give way to silly fancies,” said my father. ”She's a very fine woman. You oughtn't to turn against her, my dear Heather.”

”Do you like her, father?” I asked, nestling up to him and slipping my hand into his.

”Awfully, my dear child; she's my very dearest friend.”

”Oh! not dearer than I am?” I said, my heart beating hard.

He made no reply to this, and my heart continued to beat a great deal faster than was good for it.

By and by I went to bed. I was very, very tired, so tired that the strange room, with its beautiful furniture, made little or no impression on me. The very instant I laid my head on the pillow I was far away in the land of dreams. Once more I was back with Aunt Penelope, once more the parrot screamed, ”Stop knocking at the door!” once more Jonas broke some crockery and wept over his misdeeds, and once more Aunt Penelope forgave him and said that she would not send him away without a character this time. Then, in my dreams, the scene changed, and I was no longer in the quiet peace of the country, but in the bustle and excitement of London. Father was with me. Yes, after all the long years, father was with me again. How I had mourned for him--how I had cried out my baby heart for him--how glad I was to feel that I was close to him once more!

By his side was Lady Helen Dalrymple, and I did not like Lady Helen. She seemed to push herself between father and me, and when at last I awoke with the morning sun s.h.i.+ning into my room, I found myself saying to father, as I had said to him in reality the night before, ”Lady Helen is not dearer than I am?” and once again, as on the night before, father made no reply of any sort.

I was awakened by a nice-looking maid, who was evidently the maid in attendance on that special floor of the hotel, bringing me some tea and some crisp toast. I was thirsty, and the excitement of the night before had not yet subsided. I munched my toast and drank my tea, and then, when the maid asked me if I would like a hot bath in my room, I said ”Yes.” This luxury was brought to me, and I enjoyed it very much. I had to dress once again in the clothes that father thought so shabby, the neat little brown frock--”snuff-coloured,” he was pleased to call it--the little frock, made after a bygone pattern, which just reached to my slender ankles and revealed pretty brown stockings to match and little brown shoes; for Aunt Penelope--badly as she was supposed to dress me--was very particular where these things were concerned. She always gave me proper etceteras for my dress. She expected the etceteras and the dress to last for a very long time, and to be most carefully looked after, and not on any account whatever to be used except for high days and holidays. But she had sufficient natural taste to make me wear brown ribbon and a brown hat and brown shoes and stockings to match my brown frock.

I went down to breakfast in this apparel and found father waiting for me in the private sitting-room which he had ordered in the Westminster hotel. He came forward at once when I appeared, thrusting as he did so two or three open papers into his coat pocket.

”Well, little girl,” he said, ”and how are you? Now, if I were an Irishman, I'd say, 'The top of the morning to you, bedad!' but being only a poor, broken-down English soldier, I must wish you the best of good days, my dear, and I do trust, my Heather, that this will prove a very good day for you, indeed.”

As father spoke he rang a bell, and when the waiter appeared he ordered _table d'hote_ breakfast, which the man hastened to supply. As we were seated round the board which seemed to me to groan with the luxuries not only of that season, but of every season since cooking came into vogue, father remarked, as he helped himself to a devilled kidney, that really, all things considered, English cooking was _not_ to be despised.

”Oh, but it's delicious!” I cried--”at least,” I added, ”the cooking at a hotel like this is too delicious for anything.”

”You dear little mite!” said father, smiling into my eyes. ”And how did Auntie Pen serve you, darling? What did she give you morning, noon, and night?”

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