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'hôte 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?"

I laughed.

"Aunt Penelope believed in plain food," I said.

"Trust her for that," remarked my father. "I could see at an eye's glance that she was the sort of old lady who'd starve the young."

"Oh, no," I answered; "you are quite mistaken. Aunt Penelope never starved me and was never unkind to me. I love her very dearly, and I must ask you, father, please, not to speak against her to me."

"Well, I won't, child; I admire loyalty in others. Now then, leave those kidneys and bacon alone. Have some cold tongue. What! you have had enough? Have a kipper, then. No? What a small appetite my little girl has got! At least have some bread and butter and marmalade. No again? Dear, dear—why, the sky must be going to fall! Well, I'll tell you what—we'll have some fruit."

"Oh, dad, I should like 

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