"Look here, kiddie," he said slowly, "if your father's such a good sort, he'd have more sense than to choose a stepmother who wasn't nice. He's a much finer chap than the fathers in fairy tales. You never read of them being able to do all the things your father can do."
"No," said Charling, "that's true."
"He's sure to have chosen someone quite jolly, really," Harry went on, more confidently.
Charling looked up suddenly. "Who was it chose the chap that you weren't going to stand having set over you?" she said.
The boy bit his lip.
"I swore eternal friendship, so I can never tell your secrets, you know," said Charling softly, "and I've told you every single thing."
"Well, it's my sister, then," said he abruptly, "and she's married a chap I've never seen—and I'm to go and live with them, if you please; and she told me once she was never going to marry, and it was always going to be just us two; and now she's found this fellow she knew when she was a little girl, and he was a boy—as it might be us, you know—and she's forgotten all about what she said, and married him. And I wasn't even asked to the beastly wedding because they wanted to be married quietly; and they came home from their hateful honeymoon this evening, and the holidays begin to-day, and I was to go to this new chap's house to spend them. And I only got her letter this morning, and I just took my journey money and ran away. My boxes were sent on straight from school, though—so I've got no clothes but these. I'm just going to look at the place where she's to live, and then I'm off to sea."
"Why didn't she tell you before?"
"She says she meant it to be a pleasant surprise, because we've been rather hard up since my father died, and this chap's got horses and everything, and she says he's going to adopt me. As if I wanted to be adopted by any old stuck-up money-grubber!"