I hadn’t the least idea what she meant, but dug desperately at the path with my toe, certain that I had committed some hideous offence.
“Is that the only name you’ve got?” she demanded, suddenly.
“Dick calls me ‘Biffkins,’ ma’am,” I said, hesitatingly. “Perhaps you’ll like that better.”
But she only sniffed again, as she leaned over the gate and raised the latch.
“I’m your Grandaunt Nelson,” she announced, and started up the path to the house. Then she stopped, looking back. “Aren’t you coming?” she demanded.
“No, ma’am,” I answered, for it did not seem probable to me that Grandaunt Nelson was calculated to bring the sunlight back into my Paradise. “I’m going away.”
“Going away!” she repeated sharply. “What’s the child thinking of? Going away where?”
For answer, I made a sort of wide gesture toward the world outside the gate, and reached again for the latch.
But she had me by the arm in an instant, and with no gentle grasp.
“You’ll come with me,” she said grimly, and hustled me beside her up the path, so rapidly that my feet touched it only occasionally.