"Cats don't talk!" said Una, smiling; then she grew very grave. "Oh Tom," she said, "I don't feel a bit like laughing, really. He told me such sad, sad things, that man. He said there is a country, a long way off, where the little children are quite miserable—not happy and laughing like us. He said that it was seeing us all playing and laughing just now made him feel quite cross and angry with us, because it made him think of his little brothers and sisters—at least, I am not quite sure if he did say his little brothers and sisters, or some other little children he knows.
"They have been turned out of their home and have to live in a nasty, cold, snowy country with no friends, except their mother; yes, she is there; but their father has to work in a horrid sort of prison, and he hasn't done anything wrong—that isn't why he's being punished. And he says—the man I mean—that there are lots of little children like that in that country, and they are all sad and cold and hungry and miserable.
"He told me the name of that country, too," the little girl went on; "but I mustn't tell you, because it is a secret and I promised not to. Oh, dear! I hope it is not naughty of me to have told you all this," cried Una, suddenly bursting into tears. "I do hope I'm not letting out any of father's secret; but it made me feel so sad all that the man told me, and I wanted to talk to someone about it, and—and I never thought of it being anything to do with—Oh, dear! oh, dear! now I'm letting out more and making it worse!"
"Never mind, Una! Don't cry. We won't tell, anyone, we promise faithfully we won't," cried the children, much distressed at Una's tears; and soon the little girl dried her eyes and was at last satisfied by their promise not to tell anyone about the poor little unhappy children she had told them of. She bade her little friends good-bye then, and carried "Snoozy" away rather sadly to his home in the kitchen garden—a disused cucumber frame, where he was generally put for safety when his little mistress was not with him in the garden.
Una met the black-haired young man several times after that in the house and garden, but he did not talk to her again about the little boys and girls who lived in that other country, which was so different from kind, peaceful old England. After a time he went away, and no more strange gentlemen came to the house. And then, one day, Una's father went away also.
This was not one of Monsieur Gen's usual visits to London, when he stayed sometimes one night, sometimes two, or even came back the very same day to Haversham. This time he would be away for some weeks, perhaps a month, perhaps longer, he said, as he kissed his little girl one sunny June morning; and now August had come, and Una's father had not come back again, and the little girl felt very lonely as she wandered among the weedy flower-beds in the rose-garden.
There were not many roses out that morning, and the few that still bloomed on the bushes were poor specimens compared with the beauties that used to scent the air in that old garden. For years the Grange roses had been noted for miles around; but it was long since pruning shears had touched those branches, or since care of any sort had been shown to the Grange grounds, and it was only the children who thought the flower-beds beautiful and the garden itself a play-ground of bliss.
It was indeed a pleasant place to them, that overgrown old garden; for no gardener looked askance when they dug holes in the gravel paths, or turned the rockery into a grotto large enough to get into themselves and play at elves and witches and mermaids and other delightful games; and no one said them nay when they built a hut upon the lawn—with willow branches and rushes from beside the pond—where they "camped out" many a long summer afternoon, pretending to be gipsies, or soldiers, or Ancient Britons, whichever their fancy pleased.