"Is she?" rejoined the lady doubtfully; "I hope so. Now I wonder if you even faintly realise what you have undertaken?"
"I am not sure that I have come down to the bedrock of my responsibilities—but I will do my best."
"Of course, I know that," said the lady. "But pray bear in mind that it is not a stray pony or a lost dog to whom you are playing Providence. You have assumed the charge of a human life, a child with a strange nature, and who will be an extraordinary woman some day."
"Yes; but at present the woman, thank Heaven, is in the far-away future, and I have only to do with a child."
"I hope Angel will never give you reason to regret your generosity."
"I'm sure she will be all right. You make far too much of the business. I'm only sending my poor cousin's little orphan to school. She will turn out well, if she falls into good hands," and here he held up several letters and said: "It is for you to choose to whose keeping I entrust her."
In the meantime the subject of this conversation sat in the cart outside, enormously impressed by the importance of her position. To other children who passed the gate she nodded with an air of splendid condescension; they stared and stared and looked back enviously at the little Gascoigne girl all alone in a dogcart, holding the reins. Truly, these were some of Angela's proudest moments.
But one acquaintance, a bare-legged, freckled boy, in a striped cotton suit, boldly walked up the drive between the shrubs, and proceeded to interview little Gascoigne. This intruder was Toady Dodd, a youth of eight, son of an impecunious house, and Angel's mortal enemy.
"Hullo!" he shouted, standing with hands in pockets and legs wide apart; "what a swell we are, cocked up there!"
"Yes—miles up above you," she retorted sharply; "run away and steal some more macaroons," a malicious reminder of some past evil deed.