Harebell looked up at her new aunt with wondering eyes, then drew back, and clung with a desperately tight grasp to her friend the Commissioner.
"I don't know you," she said falteringly. "Please don't take me."
There was not a glimmer of a smile upon her aunt's face.
She held out her hand.
"You will soon learn to know me," she said.
And Harebell, somehow or other, dared not resist any longer. With drooping head she dropped Mr. Graham's hand, and placed her own in her aunt's firm clasp. They all went together to the Customs, Harebell's luggage was found, and transferred to a cab awaiting them. There was a hurried agonising farewell taken of Mr. Graham, and a few minutes after, the child found herself driving in a taxi alone with her aunt.
She gazed at her with frightened, miserable eyes. Mrs. Keith looked out of the window and said nothing. She was handsomely dressed in velvet and furs. It was a March day, and cold enough to make the Indian child shiver.
Tears came to Harebell's eyes again, and rolled down her cheeks. Suddenly Mrs. Keith turned to her, and spoke very sharply.
"When did your mother die?"
"Long, long ago," said Harebell, choking down a sob. "I was very little, for I didn't know she died at all; I thought she had just walked away to heaven—"