"Auntie, do you think the gentleman who pulled me back was the old gentleman's son?"
"No, I do not think he was."
"Why don't you, auntie?"
"I can hardly say why."
"I have seen that gentleman—the old gentleman—in Kensington Gardens," said little Charlie, nestling up to his aunt. "He spoke to mammy the day she took me to feed the ducks."
"I think that is only a fancy, dear."
"No; I am quite sure."
"Oh, you are always fancying things; you are a silly," cried Cecil, now quite recovered, and turning to kneel upon the seat that he might look out, thereby rubbing his feet on the very best "afternoon" dress of a severely respectable female, whose rubicund face expressed "drat the boy!" as strongly as a face could.
The rest of the journey was accomplished after the usual style of such travels when the aunt and nephews went out together. Cecil was constantly rebuked and made to sit down, and as constantly resumed his favorite position; so that he ultimately reached home with beautifully clean shoes, having wiped "the dust off his feet" effectually on the garments of his fellow-passengers, while his little brother nestled to his auntie's side and gazed observantly on his fellow-travellers, arriving at curious conclusions respecting them, to be afterward set forth to the amusement of his hearers.
Leaving the omnibus at the Royal Oak, the trio diverged to one of the streets between that well-known establishment and the Bayswater Road—a street which had still a few trees and small semi-detached villas, with front gardens left at one end, the relics of a past when Penrhyn Place was "quite the country"; while at the other, bricks, mortar, scaffolding, and a deeply rutted roadway indicated the commencement of mansions which would soon swallow up their humbler predecessors.