Wild Heather. L. T. Meade

it as a child will who has seldom seen fires. Anastasia stood with her back to me for a long time, even after she had done poking the fire, and when she turned round I thought her eyes looked funny.

      "Are you going to cry again?" I said. "I don't like cry-babies."

      "Of course not, Miss Heather. Now let me undress you."

      A minute later I was in bed, the firelight playing on the walls. The bed was big and warm and soft. I felt tired and very happy. I dropped into profound slumber. When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Anastasia was shaking me.

      "Get up, miss," she said. "If you want to be off in time you must be stirring."

      "Oh, hurrah!" I answered. "This is Aunt Penelope's day. Are we all going, Anastasia? And when we go, shall I ask her at once if she is your aunt, too?"

      "Now, for goodness' sake, stay still, Miss Heather, while I tie your things. You are such an awful fidget."

      I was dressed in an incredibly short space of time, and I had eaten a good breakfast, and Anastasia had taken me by the hand and brought me downstairs. Daddy was waiting for me in the hall, and he looked very big and broad and important. He went up to Anastasia and said a few words to her, and I think he slipped something into her hand, but I am not sure. She turned abruptly and walked away, and I said:

      "Where is she going, father?"

      "Never mind."

      Then we got into a cab, and I said:

      "But where's Anastasia?"

      "Oh, if she's quick we may meet her at the railway station," said father; "and if she is slow she must come on by the next train."

      "Oh, dear, what a nuisance!" I answered. "I did want her to come with us."

      "It all depends upon whether she is quick or slow," said father.

      "Well, at any rate," I answered, with a child's easy acceptance of a situation which she cannot understand, "it is lovely to go to Aunt Penelope."

      We reached the railway station. Anastasia was slow—she was nowhere to be seen. Father said, in his cheerful voice:

      "All right, little woman, she'll catch the next train." And then we found ourselves facing each other in two padded compartments of a first-class carriage, and the train moved out of the station, and we were off. There happened to be no one else in the carriage, but Daddy was very silent, and almost pale, for him. Once he said, bending towards me and speaking abruptly:

      "Promise me one thing?"

      "Yes, Daddy," I answered.

      "You will never think badly of me whatever you hear?"

      Now this was such a queer speech that I could not in the least understand it, but I answered at once, in the queer sort of metaphor that a child might use:

      "I would not think badly of you, father, if the world rocked."

      He kissed me two or three times after I said this, and so far recovered his usual self that he allowed me to sit on his knee and play with his watch chain. I was greatly taken with a little charm he wore, and when I said I liked it he told me that it had once belonged to a great idol in one of the most marvellous temples in the historic town of Delhi. He said it was supposed to be a charm and to bring luck, and then he detached it from his chain and slipped it on to a narrow gold chain which I wore round my neck. He told me to keep it always, for it was certain to bring luck. I said:

      "What's luck?"

      He answered: "Fair gales and a prosperous sail."

      I nodded my head satisfactorily at that, and said:

      "Then I will wear it, and you and me, Daddy"—I 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

       Table of Contents

      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