"I don't know what arrangements your father will make; he doesn't go into every detail in this letter. Perhaps he will get a governess for you all; perhaps you will have to teach the younger ones."
"Oh!" Audrey did not care for that prospect. She was not fond of children, they made a house untidy and noisy, and required so much attention. All the same, though, it was very nice to be going home as mistress of the house, and companion to her mother. Perhaps her mother would help her with her story-writing. It would be grand if she could write stories and sell them, and earn enough money to buy her own clothes. Granny Carlyle did not approve of her writing, or reading either. Indeed, there was scarcely a book in the house.
Audrey recovered her spirits as she remembered the books and papers at home; they seemed to overflow and spread all over the house.
"I shall have my own bookcase, and keep my own books in it, away from the children," she thought to herself. "I hope I have a bedroom to myself. Oh, I must!" But the little doubt she could not get rid of sobered her again. She thought of her pretty bedroom upstairs, how lovely the comfort and peace of it had seemed to her after the bare ugly room at home, which she had shared with Faith.
"Granny, do you think I shall have a room to myself at home?" she asked anxiously. "I shall hate sharing one with Faith!"
"I daresay Faith will not relish sharing one with you," remarked granny, severely, "if she has to."
"But she is so untidy, and after having had such a nice one all to myself, I shall miss it dreadfully."
"I wonder if you will miss me," exclaimed Granny sharply, and for the first time Audrey thought of her grandmother, and her feelings.
"Why, of course I shall, granny, and everything here. I expect I shall often wish I was back again." But it was not until the last day came, and she sat at breakfast for the last time in the handsome, comfortable dining-room, that she fully realised the pain of parting.
She was looking across to the sun-bathed park, at the children already at play there, and the 'grownups' sitting on the seats gazing at the view, or reading their papers, when the thought came to her that to-morrow, and the next day, and all the days that followed, they would be there, but she would not see them. She would be miles away from that dear peaceful spot, with only a rough country road to look out on, and the desolate-looking moor in the distance. And with the same the shrill whistle of a departing train cut the air, and the melancholy of it, and of the day, and of all that was to happen, poured over Audrey, until the pain seemed almost more than she could bear.