How happy Fanny felt, when at length they reached their dear old home with granny quite well, in spite of the fatigue she had undergone, and Norman not only recovered, but evidently so very different to what he had been before. One of his first acts was to run up to Susan to tell her that he hoped she would find him a good boy. Trusty, who came out barking with delight, sprang up to lick the hand of everybody else, but carefully avoided Norman. Norman, however, called to him in a gentle voice, and when he came up patted his head and stroked his back, and Trusty wagged his tail as much as to say, “I am glad you are not afraid of me, and I hope we shall be good friends
in future.” Such they became, and many a romp had Trusty with the young gentleman.
Fanny on going to her room, found Nancy in her doll’s house ready to welcome her, and turning round what should she see but Miss Lucy, looking bright and fresh, with a low frock such as she wore when she first arrived. There were no marks on her neck, no disfiguring blotches on her face. If she was not the original Miss Lucy, she was so exactly like her that she must be, Fanny thought, her twin sister.
“Oh how very kind,” exclaimed Fanny, “I need have no fear now of leaving Miss Lucy by herself either in the drawing-room or elsewhere.”
After talking to her for some time, and introducing her to Nancy she ran downstairs, eager to thank her papa and mamma and granny, or whoever had obtained a new Miss Lucy for her.
No one was in the drawing-room, but a minute afterwards Norman came in, carrying in his hand a gaily-painted bird-cage, with a beautiful little bird inside. The bird-cage was exactly the size of the mysterious package.
“There, dear Fanny,” he said, “we have brought it all the way from Glen Tulloch. I bought it with some money which papa gave me to do what I liked with. But I was afraid it might die on the journey, so I did not like to offer it you till arrived safely here. Will you take it, dear Fanny, and call it Pecksy? I hope it will be a happier little Pecksy than the last.”
For a moment Norman hung down his head, and then he looked up with a beaming smile as Fanny kissed him, and thanked him again and again for his gift.
Norman then begged Fanny to come up to her room, and he there pointed out a hook which had been placed in the wall on which she might hang her bird-cage and reach it without difficulty, though too far off the ground for Trusty to frighten it, or for Kitty, the cat, even by exerting her utmost agility to reach it.