I'm wondering where my diddleums, Golly, is! We all miss you so much, deary, though we don't miss so many little things as when you were here. My dear, conscientious, unselfish little girl! You don't say where John Gale is. Is he still protecting you—he-he!—you giddy, naughty thing! People wonder on the island why I let you go alone to London—they forget your dear mother was a Frenchwoman! If you see anything your dear old grandfather would like—send it on.
GRANFER.
Later, her aunt wrote:—
Have you seen the Queen yet, and does she wear her crown at breakfast? You might get over the area railing at Buckingham Palace—it would be nothing for a girl like you to do—and see if you can find out.
To these letters Golly answered, in her own light-hearted way:—
DEAR GRANKINS,—I haven't seen John much—but I think he's like the Private Secretary at the play—he "don't like London." Lordy! there—I've let it out! I've been to a theayter. Nurse Jinny Jones and me scrouged into the pit one night without paying, "pertendin'," as we were in uniform, we had come to take out a "Lydy" that had fainted. Such larks! and such a glorious theayter! I'll tell you another time. Tell aunty the Queen's always out when I call. But that's nothing, everybody else is so affable and polite in London. Gentlemen—"real toffs," they call 'em—whom you don't know from Adam—think nothing of speaking to you in the street. Why, Nurse Jinny says—but there another patient's going off who by rights oughter have died only to-morrow. "To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow," as that barn-stormer actor said. But they're always calling for that giddy young thing.
Your GOLLY.
Meantime, John Gale, having abruptly left Golly at the door of St. Barabbas' hospital, tactfully avoiding an unseemly altercation with the cab-driver regarding her exact fare, pursued his way thoughtfully to the residence of his uncle, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He found his Lordship in his bath-room. He was leaning over the bath-tub, which was half full of water, contemplating with some anxiety the model of a line-of-battle ship which was floating on it, bottom upward. "I don't think it can be quite right—do you?" he said, nervously grasping his nephew's hand as he pointed to the capsized vessel; "yet they always do it. Tell me!" he went on appealingly, "tell me, as a professing Christian and a Perfect Man—is it quite right?"
"I should think, sir," responded John Gale, with uncompromising truthfulness, "that the average vessel of commerce is not built in that way."
"Yet," said the First Lord of the Admiralty, with a far-off look, "they all do it! And they don't steer! The larger they are and the more recent the model, the less they steer. Dear me—you ought to see 'em go round and round in that tub." Then, apparently recalling the probable purpose of John's visit, he led the way into his dressing-room. "So you are in London, dear boy. Is there any little thing you want? I have," he continued, absently fumbling in the drawers of his dressing-table, "a few curacies and a bishopric somewhere, but with these blessed models—I can't think where they are. Or what would you say to a nice chaplaincy in the navy, with a becoming uniform, on one of those thingummies?" He pointed to the bath-room. "Stay," he continued, as he passed his hand over his perplexed brows, "now I think of it—you're quite unorthodox! Dear me! that wouldn't do. You see, Drake,"—he paused, as John Gale started,—"I mean Sir Francis Drake, once suspended his chaplain for unorthodoxy, according to Froude's book. These admirals are dreadfully strict Churchmen. No matter! Come again some other time," he added, gently pushing his nephew downstairs and into the street, "and we'll see about it."
With a sinking heart, John turned his steps toward Westminster. He would go and see Golly; perhaps he had not looked after her as he ought. Suddenly a remembered voice, in mimicking accents, fell upon his ear with the quotation, "Do you know?" Then, in a hansom passing swiftly by him, Golly, in hospital dress with flying ribbons, appeared, sitting between Lord Brownstone Ewer and Francis Horatio Nelson Drake, completely grown up. And from behind floated the inexpressibly sad refrain, "Hi tiddli hi!"
This is how it happened. One morning, Jinny Jones, another hospital nurse, had said to her, "Have you any objection, dear, to seeing a friend of another gent, a friend of mine?"