I hurried downstairs; a door stood open, and looking in, I was sure that it was the dining-room, and grandmamma there waiting for me. A table, which to me seemed very large, though it was really an ordinary-sized round one, was nicely arranged for tea. How glad I was that it was not dinner!
'Come, dear,' said grandmamma, 'you must be very hungry.'
'I couldn't change my dress, grandmamma,' I said, not quite sure if she would not be displeased with me.
'Of course not,' she replied, cheerfully, 'I never expected it this first evening.'
My spirits rose when I had had a nice cup of tea and something to eat—it is funny how our bodies rule our minds sometimes—and I began to talk more in my usual way, especially as, to my great relief, the servants had by this time left the room.
'Shall we have tea like this every evening, grandmamma?' I asked; 'it is so much nicer than dinner.'
Grandmamma hesitated.
'Yes,' she said, 'while we are alone I think it will be the best plan, as you are too young for late dinner. When your cousins come home, of course things will be regularly arranged.'
'That means,' I thought to myself, 'that I shall have all my meals alone, I suppose,' and again an unreasonably cross feeling came over me.
Grandmamma noticed it, I think, but she said nothing, and very soon after we had finished tea she proposed that I should go to bed. She took me upstairs herself to my room, and waited till I was in bed; then she kissed me as lovingly and tenderly as ever, but, all the same, no sooner had she left me alone than I buried my face in the pillow and burst into tears. I had an under feeling that grandmamma was not quite pleased with me. I know now that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort of martyr.