She spoke in a very prim voice, and stooping down, kissed me, hurting my face as she did so with the rim of her spectacles. I disliked her on the spot and told her so with the frank eyes of a child, although I was not quite rude enough to utter any words by my lips. "Well, Gordon," said my aunt, "you were a little late, and I was beginning to fear that you had missed your train. We shall just have time to arrange everything before you return to Southampton." "I am going to London to-night," said father. "Well, well, it really doesn't matter to me. Child, don't stare." I looked away at once. There was a parrot in a cage, and the parrot said, in his shrill voice at that moment: "Stop knocking at the door." I burst into a peal of laughter and ran towards him. I was about to approach his cage with my finger, when Aunt Penelope said: "He bites." I did not want him to bite my finger, for his beak was so sharp. So I said: "Please, Aunt Penelope, are you aunt also to Anastasia?" "I have never heard of her," said Aunt Penelope. "Little girls should be seen and not heard." At that moment the parrot again shouted out, "Stop knocking at the door," and I was so amused by him that I did not mind Aunt Penelope. After all, nothing much mattered, for I would be going to London immediately with Daddy. I stood and stared at the parrot, hoping much that he would speak again. The parrot cocked his head to one side and looked at me, but he did not utter a word. "Speak, oh! do speak," I said in a whisper; the parrot turned his back on me. Aunt Penelope said, "Sit down, Heather." CHAPTER II A few minutes later we went into another room to lunch. It was a very small room, smaller than many of the state cabins on board the good ship _Pleiades_. There was a little table in the centre of the room, and there were places for three laid at the table. Opposite to me was a milk pudding, and opposite to Aunt Penelope was a tureen of soup, and opposite to Daddy I really forget what. The boy in buttons came up and helped me to a portion of pudding. "I don't like it," I said at once. "Take it away, please, boy." Aunt Penelope said: "Leave the pudding where it is, Jonas. Heather, my dear, you must invariably eat what is put before you. I consider milk pudding proper food for little girls, and had this made on purpose for you." "But I hate milk puddings, Aunt Penelope," I answered, "and I never, never eat them." "The child is accustomed to feed as I do," said my father, speaking in a harsh, grating sort of voice, and avoiding my eyes. "Well, in future," said Aunt Penelope, "she will eat as I want her to eat. I must bring her up in my way or not at all, Gordon." "Eat your pudding like a darling," said my father, and as Aunt Penelope had really made a most silly speech, for father and I were leaving for London almost immediately, I ate the horrid pudding just to please him.