"About mid-day you may see him," Miss Brooke answered, cheerfully. "He will be out till two or three in the morning, you know; and of course he can't be disturbed very early. You must remember that we keep the house very quiet until eleven or twelve, when he generally comes down. He breakfasts then, and goes out."
Lesley was mystified. Why did her father keep such extraordinary hours? She had not the slightest notion that these were the usual arrangements of a journalist's life. She thought that he must be very thoughtless, very self-indulgent, even very wicked. Surely her mother had been more than justified in leaving him. She laid her head upon the pillow, feeling rather inclined to cry.
Miss Brooke had not much of a clue to her emotions; but she was trying hard to fathom what was passing in the girl's mind, and she came very near the mark. She stooped down and kissed her affectionately.
"I daresay you feel lonely and strange, my dear," she said; "but you must remember that you have come to your own home, and that we belong to you, and you to us. So you must put up with us for a time, and you may—eventually—come to like us, you know. Stranger things than that have happened before now."
Lesley put one arm round her aunt's neck, undeterred by Miss Brooke's laugh and the little struggle she made to get away.
"Thank you," she said, "for being so kind. I am sorry I cried when I came in."
"You were hysterical and overwrought. I shall tell your father so."
"You think he was vexed?"
"I suppose," said Miss Brooke, "that a man hardly likes to see his daughter burst out crying and shrink away when she first looks at him."
"Oh, I was very stupid!" cried Lesley, remorsefully. "It must have looked so bad, and I did not mean anything—at least, I meant only——"