"And I for you," I replied. "I am happy in the old house: I am glad to have returned."
"I am not too weak to learn the truth," said Aunt Penelope. "I have, in my humble opinion, the first right to you, for it was I who trained you and who gave you what little education you possess; therefore I hold that I have a right. What did that woman do, why did you run away from her? As to your father, poor chap—well, of course, he's bound heart and soul to the horrible creature, but that's what comes from doing wrong. Your father did a very bad thing and——"
"Aunt Penelope," I interrupted—I took her hand and held it firmly—"don't—don't tell me to-night."
She looked at me out of her hard, bright eyes, then seemed to collapse into herself, then said slowly—
"Very well, I won't, I won't tell you to-night, that is, if you promise to say why you have returned."
"I will tell you," I answered. "Auntie, Lady Helen's house is the world, and you taught me to despise the world; you taught me not to spend my time and my money on dress and grand things; you taught me not to waste such a short, valuable, precious thing as life. Oh, Aunt Penelope, in that house people do nothing but kill time, and my Daddy is in it—my own Daddy! You know how brisk he used to be, how bright, how determined, but now—something seems to be eating into his heart, and breaking his strength and spirit—and—people have hinted things about him!"
Aunt Penelope nodded her head.
"They're likely to," she answered. "Major Grayson could not expect matters to be otherwise."
"But, auntie, that is one of the hardest things of all. My darling father is not even called Major Grayson—he has to take the name of Dalrymple."
"What!" said Aunt Penelope. "Does he dare to be ashamed of his father's honest name?"