"I should think he did," said Aunt Penelope. "Why, he had to stoop to get in at the door, and when he was in the room his head almost touched the ceiling."

"Then he was here?" I said.

"Yes. He came three times to see you. That was when you were really bad."

"When is he coming again?" I asked.

"Finish your chicken, and don't ask silly questions," snapped Aunt Penelope.

I did finish my chicken, and Aunt Penelope took the plate away.

"Was Anastasia here also?" I asked. "And did I say to her, 'Please, don't let the pins stick in'?"

"The woman who brought you back from India came to see you once or twice," said Aunt Penelope.

"Then she did catch the next train?" I said.

"You have talked enough now, my dear Heather. Lie down and go to sleep."

"When will she come again?" I asked.

"You have talked enough. I am not going to answer any silly questions. Lie down and sleep."

I was very sleepy, and I suppose that when you are really as weak as I was then, you don't feel things very much. Now I allowed Aunt Penelope to lay me flat down in my little bed, and closing my eyes I forgot everything in slumber.

Those are my first memories. I got well, of course, of that childish illness, and Aunt Penelope by and by explained things to me.

Anastasia was not coming back at all, and father had gone to India. Aunt Penelope was rather restrained and rather queer when she spoke of father. She told me also that she had the entire charge of me, and that I was being brought up at her expense, as father had no money to spend on me. She gave me to understand that she was a very poor woman, and could not afford any servant except Buttons, or Jonas, as she called him. She said she preferred a boy in the house to a woman, for he was smarter at going messages and a greater protection at night. I could not understand half what she said. Almost all her narrative was mixed with injunctions to me to be good, to be very good, to love my aunt more than anyone in 

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