"Now, look here, Heather, once and for all you must stop this folly. I presume you don't want me to cease to love you. Well, you've got to be good to your stepmother, and you have got to accept the clothes she gives you. She and I are taking a beautiful house in a fashionable part of London and you are to live with us, and she will be nice to you if you will be nice to her--not otherwise, you understand--by no means otherwise. And if I see you nasty to her, or putting on airs, why, I'll give you up. You'll have to take her if you want to keep me, and that's the long and short of it." I trembled all over; my hero of heroes--was he tumbling from his place in my gallery? "Promise, child, promise," said my father, brusquely. "Will it make you happy if I do?" I said. "Yes. I'll call you my little duck of all girls--I'll love you like anything, but we three must be harmonious. You will stay here until we come back, and on the day we come back you are to be in the new house to meet us, and you are to wear one of your pretty frocks, and you are to do just what _she_ says. It's your own fault, Heather, that I have to bring in her name so often. Bless her, though, the jewel she is! My little love, we'll be as happy as the day is long. It's terribly old-fashioned, it's low down, to abuse stepmothers now--don't you understand that, Heather?" "I don't," I answered. "I suppose I must do what you wish, for I cannot live without you, but if--if--I find it _quite_ past bearing--may I go back to Aunt Penelope?" "Bless me, you won't find it past bearing! We need not contemplate such an emergency." "But, promise me, Daddy darling--if I do find it past bearing, may I go back to Aunt Penelope?" "Oh, yes, yes, yes--anything to quiet you, child. You are just the most fractious and selfish creature I ever came across. You don't seem to realise for a single minute what anybody else is feeling." "It's settled, and I will try to be happy," I said. "That's right. Now, let's talk of all sorts of funny things. I haven't half heard about your different Jonases, nor about the parrot, who would only say, 'Stop knocking at the door!'" "Daddy," I said, with great earnestness, "may I have Anastasia back? It would give me great, great help if she came back." "Bless me!" said my father, rubbing his red face, "I must ask her ladyship. I'll see about it; I'll see about it, little woman. Now, then, stand up and let me look at you." I stood up. I was wearing my snuff-coloured dress, and the electric light and the firelight mingled, fell over a desolate, forlorn, little figure. "Run upstairs this minute, Heather, and put on one of your pretty frocks. I know for a certainty they haven't gone back, because I told Lady Carrington she was to keep them. Find a servant who can tell you where they are, and put one on, and come down and let me see you in it."