“Yes, thank you, sir. I like horses. I think I used to ride on one once.”
That look that always shone in the child’s eyes when he spoke or thought of the vanished past touched the baronet’s kind heart.
“Well, well, you will soon know all about it, no doubt; and meantime, you must come and talk to my little girl as often as you can, and play together and enjoy yourselves. Now run off, Queenie, and take your little friend with you. You can ask Bennet if he has any strawberries to spare for you. Keep in the garden, children. You know, Queenie, mamma does not like your being in the yard or the stable.”
Queenie knew this quite well; but she did not care always to remember such prohibitions, and she knew that her father never enforced discipline with any great authority.
She looked at him with a saucy laugh.
“Mamma would like me to live in a glass case, wrapped up in cotton wool; but I don’t think she’d keep me there long.”
Sir Walter laughed too.
“Now run away, puss, and take Bertie with you; and try to keep out of mischief for one day of your life, if you can.”
Queenie stood on tiptoe to make her father bend down whilst she whispered in his ear,—
“And you’ll make mamma let Bertie come here often? He’s a nice little boy, and has nobody to play with; and it must be so dull for him living all alone with the Squire.”