But Pennie was doomed to disappointment, for five o’clock came without any way out of the difficulty having presented itself.
“I suppose I didn’t believe hard enough,” she said to herself as she made her way sorrowfully upstairs to Ambrose’s room. Just as she thought this the study door opened and her father came out. He was carrying something which looked like a large cage covered with a cloth. Pennie stopped and waited till he came up to her.
“Why, whatever can that be, father?” she said. “Is it alive? Where are you taking it?”
“It is a little visitor for Ambrose,” he answered; “and I’m taking him upstairs to tea with you both. But you’re not to look at him yet;” for Pennie was trying to peep under the cloth.
When they got into Ambrose’s room she was relieved to find that he looked just like himself, though his face was very white and thin. He was much better to-day, and able to sit up in a big arm-chair with a picture-book. But nevertheless before Nurse left the room she whispered to Pennie again that she must be very quiet.
There was no need for the caution at present, for Pennie was in one of her most subdued moods, though at any other time she would have been very much excited to know what was inside the cage.
“Now,” said the vicar when he was seated in the arm-chair, with Ambrose settled comfortably on his knee, “we shall see what Ambrose and this little gentleman have to say to each other.”
He lifted off the covering, and there was the dearest little brown and white owl in the world, sitting winking and blinking in the sudden light.
Ambrose clasped his little thin hands, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure.
“Oh, father,” he cried, “what a darling dear! Is he for me? I always did want to have an owl so!”