Her sense of indignation reaching a higher pitch every minute, she spitefully slammed the front door and left the house just as the clock struck eleven. Her heels clicked on the sidewalk sharply in full sympathy with her state of mind as she walked down the street of the village. And then, as she might have expected, she met the one person whom she least of all desired to meet. An icy stare on her part, a stiff formal bow from the man passing—that was all, but she knew that in that brief interval he had had ample opportunity to observe that she was worried and cross and looked every day of her twenty-nine lonely years; and of course it could not but give him much satisfaction. This disturbing thought crowded out the remembrance of the unloved, unwelcome niece and nephew until a sharp curve in the road brought into view the smoke begrimed depot and, drawn up before it, the train which had just come to a puffing, throbbing standstill like a wild horse unwilling to pause in its mad race.
Several of Miss Hetty's acquaintances, gathered on the station platform, were not accorded the usual recognition, for her eyes were fixed intently on the childish pair alighting from the train. The one, a tall, slender lad of about thirteen, with curls of golden yellow hair clustering over a broad forehead, a mouth whose sensitive delicately modeled lips together with the shadowy depths of deep grey eyes indicated even in one so young the temperament of a dreamer, first engaged her attention. But little Pearl! Hair black as night when only one star is shining and eyes like the double image of that star; a figure as tiny as the dream of a fairy: that was Pearl.
It was not her childish charm however that made Miss Hetty gasp. It was the enormous bow, half covering her head, and the butterfly comb that caught back her curls. The ribbon seemed larger than the silk frock buoyant with many skirts and quite abbreviated, while the little high-heeled shoes seemed designed for anything rather than wear.
For a time the children stood quite alone on the platform. Their first appearance had held Miss Hetty spellbound at her position near the door. She felt rather than heard a suppressed chuckle run through the small crowd. Then suddenly her gaze met a pair of compelling brown eyes, not cold and scrutinizing as they had been when their owner had passed her a short time before, but sympathetic and friendly. She blushed furiously and, quickly walking toward the forlorn pair, extended to each a cold hand of welcome.
"Come Periwinkle, come Pearl," she said, not ungently. "I am your Aunty Hetty and have come to take you home." And holding her head high and her eyes straight ahead, she lead the strange pair past the tall gentlemen on the platform.
"Do you know, Aunt Hetty, I thought it was you," said the boy eagerly as they left the station. "You look a little like our mother did. She told us lots about you, and so did the Fat Woman."
"The fat woman," exclaimed Miss Hetty somewhat in surprise. "Who is she?"
"She looked after us," replied Pearl in a voice so sweet that in spite of her aversion to her duty Miss Hetty's heart began to warm to her unwelcome charges. "Even while mother was living she cared for us, and she told us all we know. She got me all my clothes. She was so jolly and nice, and so was Mr. Barleydon, and I didn't want to leave the circus, I didn't, but Periwinkle did."
"Why did Periwinkle want to leave," asked Miss Hetty, now becoming much interested, although she did purse up her lips when she spoke the obnoxious name. Periwinkle answered for himself: "I didn't like the trapezes, nor the everlasting traveling. I wanted to be in a home like mother told us about and go to school. And besides that, I didn't want Pearl to be like the spangled circus ladies, even if some of them were lovely and the Fat Woman perfectly grand; so was one of the clowns. You can't imagine, Aunt Hetty, what a noble, charitable fellow Jerry was. I disliked to leave them. But how I hated the snake-charmer; you can't imagine, Auntie."
Aunt Hetty shivered at the mere mention of a snake-charmer. She could easily sympathize with Periwinkle in his aversion for her.