Now, after we had been a little while at the Park, I found that Jane had got very fond of flowers, and was always anxious to go to the glass-houses directly we came out into the garden.
"Why, Miss Sissy," she would say, "there never was anything like the ferns, and the orange-trees, and the cactuses in them houses; and Mr. Owen so civil-like in showing them to us, too."
So off we went to the hot-houses, and there Mr. Owen and Jane talked and talked till I got tired of the hot air, and went to play outside; and there just outside was Gus, always waiting to pick me the prettiest flowers, and find me the first sweet violets. But I was shy, and his words were so foreign that they frightened me; nor did I like at all being called "Petite mademoiselle," which was not my name, and couldn't mean anything that I could think of. At last I grew braver, and one day I ventured to ask—
"Who is your papa?"
"Me hab no papa, no mamma!" he said, looking very full at me.
"Where do you live then?" I asked. "You're not a bit like Bobbie!"
"Me live wid de Capitaine; me never will leaf de Capitaine—never, never, never!" he answered eagerly.
This made me feel very queer, and I think I looked half-frightened, for his look changed quickly, and he said, smiling his own sunny smile—
"Me fetch petite mademoiselle somet'ing nice; me fetch de puss dat de Capitaine just bring home!"
A pussy! That sounded pleasant, and I waited eagerly for his return. I waited a long time, as it seemed, and I had grown tired, and was looking for daisies on the grass, when I heard his step and the tap of his favourite holly-stick on the gravel. What a funny boy he was to call that "something nice"!