'Yes; a gentleman.'
It was only on rare occasions that the child was sent for. Nurse was in a flutter at once, putting on his best brown velvet suit, with his little cream-silk shirt, and brushing out his curls with great skill and care.
Bobby did not like the summons at all. He remembered the last time he had been in the drawing-room. It was to see an old clergyman who had patted him on the head and asked him if he knew his Catechism. He had wriggled away from him, and upset a vase of flowers upon a table near, and had been sent upstairs in disgrace, his grandmother declaring that 'children were always out of place in a drawing-room.'
'It's another old gempleum, Nurse. I don't like them at all.'
But when he opened the drawing-room door he saw his grandmother sitting in her stiffest sternest attitude, and, seated opposite to her, the tall man with the bright eyes and the curly hair who had rescued him that afternoon from the bull.
Bobby's heart sank into his boots at once. So he had come to tell tales of him to his grandmother. He had had one scolding and a punishment from Nurse, now he would get another!
'Come here, Bobby,' said his grandmother coldly. 'Your father has come to see you.'
He could not believe his ears. For an instant he gazed wildly and uncomprehendingly at the stranger, who turned and held out his hand.
'Why, upon my word! You're the little chap who withstood the furious bull! Come along. No wonder I felt as I did when I saw you!'
How often had Bobby rehearsed this scene to himself! He had pictured himself flinging himself with a glad cry into the arms of his father, and that father gathering him to his breast and smothering him with kisses. How different was reality to fancy! He was too dazed by the suddenness of the discovery to do more than stare stupidly up at his father, who drew him gently to him and kissed him on the forehead.