“We are going to England to live with grandpa. Mother says he's just the dearest old man, and he's sent for us all to come. He lives in a lovely rectory in Cheshire.”
“You don't mean it, Miss Hazel!” said Flutters, his breath quite taken away.
“And of course you will go with me, Flutters. Mother says you may.”
“It's very kind of you to be willing to take me,” Flutters managed to reply, but at the same time realized that he would do almost anything rather than go back to England, and to the very same county, too, from which he had come; and he leaned down, apparently to brush some straw from one of Gladys's legs, but really to hide the tears of bitter disappointment that had sprung unbidden into his eyes. Fortunately, the ruse succeeded very well, Hazel never dreaming but what he was as delighted with the news as she herself.
“I can't tell you how glad I am to go, Flutters, although mother says we probably never should have gone, if it had not been for father's illness. Things are getting so much quieter now that she thinks people would have let us alone, and father could, perhaps, have found some way to make a living, because, you see, we haven't much money left since the war; but you knew that, Flutters?”
Flutters sort of half nodded yes, seeing that something was expected of him, but he was not paying close attention to what Hazel was saying. How could he bear to have them go and leave him alone in America, and whatever should he do? were the thoughts that were filling his mind. It seemed as though every hair on Gladys's back was bristling with the same sad questions, and then the thought came to him that Gladys herself would probably be left behind, too, and he laid his hand affectionately on her prettily arched neck.
“I shall be glad to live in a King's country,” Hazel resumed, after a little pause, “and not where everybody's as good as everybody else, and where they don't have princes and princesses, and lovely palaces for them to live in. But there's one thing I mean to do as soon as ever I reach there, and that is, to get presented at Court, and tell King George how the prisoners were treated on the 'Jersey,' He ought to know about it, and when he does, I just guess those men will get the punishment they deserve;” and her cheeks glowed with excitement at the thought of the forthcoming interview. “Flutters, do you know anything about the South of England—about Cheshire?”