"Mine, Papa; the one you're going to get for me." And as no gleam of intelligence yet brightened his puzzled face, I added, doubtfully, "You are going to get one, aren't you, Papa?"
"What put this idea into your head, Regie?" asked my father, after a pause.
And then I had to explain, feeling very uncomfortable as I did so, how I had overheard a few words at the Rectory, and a few words more at the lodge, and how I had patched my hearsays together and made out that a certain little man was coming to be my tutor, who had previously been tutor somewhere else, and that his name was Gray. And all this time my father did not help me out a bit by word or sign. By the time I had got to the end of my story of what I had heard, and what I had guessed, and what Nurse Bundle and I had made out, I did not need any one to tell me that to listen to what one is not intended to hear is a thing to be ashamed of. My cheeks and ears were very red, and I felt very small indeed.
"Now, Regie," said my father, "I won't say what I think about your listening to Mr. Andrewes and me, in order to find out what I did not choose to tell you. You shall tell me what you think, my boy. Do you think it is a nice thing, a gentlemanly thing, upright, and honest, and worthy of Papa's only son, to sneak about listening to what you were not meant to hear. Now don't begin to cry, Reginald," he added, rather sharply; "you have nothing to cry for, and it's either silly or ill-tempered to whimper because I show you that you've done wrong. Anybody may do wrong; and if you think that you have, why say you're sorry, like a man, and don't do so any more."
I made a strong effort to restrain my tears of shame and vexation, and said very heartily—
"I'm very sorry, Papa. I didn't think of it's being wrong."
"I quite believe that, my boy. But you see that it's not right now, don't you?"
"Oh yes!" I exclaimed, "and I won't listen any more, father." We made it up lovingly, Rubens flying frantically at our heads to join in the kisses and reconciliation. He had been anxiously watching us, being well aware that something was amiss.
"I don't mean to tell you what Mr. Andrewes and I were talking about," said my father, "because I did not wish you to hear. But I will tell you that you made a very bad guess at the secret. We were not talking of a tutor, or dreaming of one, and you have vexed yourself for nothing. However, I think it serves you right for listening. But we won't talk of that any more."
I do not think Nurse Bundle was disposed to blame me as much as I now blamed myself; but she was invariably loyal to my father's decisions, and never magnified her own indulgence in the nursery by pitying me if I got into scrapes in the drawing-room.