I think my breath went away from me in my consternation. How had Mr. Edwin Barley learnt that? It could only have been from Selina.
"She sent me after Mr. Heneage, sir, to tell him to let Philip King alone—to command it in his mother's name."
"I know. Instead of that he went and shot him. I would keep my wife's name out of all this; you must do the same. But that you are a child of right feeling and of understanding beyond your years, I should not say this to you. Good-bye. I shall not see you in the morning."
"Good-bye sir," I answered. "Thank you for letting them all be kind to me."
And he shook hands with me for the first time.
CHAPTER VII.
AT MISS FENTON'S.
I must have been a very impressionable child; easily swayed by the opinions of those about me. The idea conveyed to my mind by what I had heard of Mrs. Hemson was, that she was something of an ogre with claws; and I can truthfully say, I would almost as soon have been consigned to the care of an ogre as to hers. I felt so all the while I was going to her.
Charlotte Delves placed me in the ladies' carriage at Nettleby station under charge of the guard—just as it had been in coming. And once more I, poor lonely little girl, was being whirled on a railroad journey. But ah! with what a sad amount of experience added to my young life!
Two o'clock was striking as the train steamed into Dashleigh station. I was not sure at first that it was Dashleigh, and in the uncertainty did not get out. Several people were on the platform, waiting for the passengers the train might bring. One lady in particular attracted my notice, a tall, fair, graceful woman, with a sweet countenance. There was something in her face that put me in mind of mamma. She was looking attentively at the carriages, one after another, when her eyes caught mine, and she came to the door.
"I think you must be, Anne," she said, with a bright smile, and sweet voice of kindness. "Did you not know I should be here? I am Mrs. Hemson."