"About Lizzie. I should like to know whom she married, and all particulars, for she is still my favourite."
"Perhaps I may tell you Lizzie's special story some other time. But I will just say that Mr. Northcote, having other sons, had to spare Harold to his father-in-law, and that when they married, he and Milly took up their abode at Belford Regis, at Elin Crag itself. Also that they lived very happy ever after, that is, to this present time of telling. Also," and here mamma's eyes sparkled with fun, "that I have altered names of persons and places, to make my story a little more mysterious. The truth is, Milly's name was not Milly at all; but Florence, like yours, Flossie, and Harold's was John; and that two of their children are called after them."
Mamma was here interrupted by a perfect shout. "Then you and papa were the Harold and Mildred of the story."
"Yes, darlings; and you can testify to the truth of the statement that they too lived happily ever after. It was most especially of your dear father and myself I was thinking when I spoke of the two lives whose future was influenced by a penny."
And mamma having thus finished her story, vanished by the open door in order to greet her hero, who had just entered, and was rubbing his shoes in the hall, and left her youngsters to digest as best they might her "Tale of a Penny."
[BORROWED FEATHERS]
[CHAPTER I.]
"THAT dreadful bell again, and I am almost certain I heard wheels on the gravel! If it should be one of mamma's grandee friends, and only Cinderella to answer the door! I have a great mind to let the individual ring on until he or she is tired. To-morrow I will have all the front blinds down until evening, then no one will think there is anybody at home. And," added the speaker, "as, socially speaking, I am nobody, they will be right."
Annette Clifford was talking to herself. She had two good reasons for doing it, the first being that she had nobody else to talk to at the time. The second, that being a bright lively girl, possessed of great intelligence, overflowing spirits, and a gregarious temperament, she found it difficult to hold her tongue for hours together. During most of the day she was all but alone in a large house, its only other inmate being a make-shift servant, who, in addition to general incapacity, was so deaf as to render any attempt at conversation laborious.
Whilst Annette thus communed with herself, she was also moving swiftly and noiselessly towards a window whence she could command a view of the person who was demanding admittance at the hall door.