When lunch was finished, Aunt Penelope went up to father and spoke to him. He nodded, and I noticed that his face was very pale. Then he said: "Perhaps so; perhaps it is the best thing." Then, all of a sudden, he stooped and took me in his arms and pressed me very, very close to his heart, and let me down on the floor rather suddenly. The next minute he had taken half-a-crown out of his pocket. "Your Aunt Penelope and I want to have a little private talk," he said, "and I was thinking that you might--or rather your aunt was thinking that you might--go out for a walk with Buttons." "His name is Jonas," said Aunt Penelope. "I beg his pardon--with Jonas--and he will take you to a toy shop. You have never seen any English toys, and you might buy a new doll with this." "I'd like to buy some sort of toy," I answered, "but I don't want dolls--I hate them. Can I buy a parrot, do you think, and would he talk to me? I'd rather like that, and it would be great, great fun to have him when we are sailing back with gentle gales and a prosperous sail to darling India." "Well, go and buy something, darling," said father, and I nodded to him brightly and went out of the room. Buttons, as I continued to call him in my own heart, for I could not get round his other name of Jonas, was really quite agreeable. He took me away to a high part of the town and very far from the shops, and on to a wild stretch of moor; here he told me all kinds of extraordinary stories about rats and cats and mice and caterpillars. He confided the fact to me that he kept white mice in his attic bedroom, but that if Miss Despard found it out he would be sent about his business on the spot. He implored me to be extremely secret with regard to the matter, and I naturally promised that I would. "You need not fear, Buttons," I said. "Ladies, who are true ladies, never repeat things when they are asked not." "And you are a real, true lady, missy," was his answer. He further promised to enlighten me with regard to the method of producing silk from silk-worms, and told me what fun it was to wind the silk off the big yellow cocoons. "I think," I said, "I should like that very much, for if I got a big lot I should have enough silk to make a yellow silk dress for Anastasia." "Whoever's she?" asked Buttons. "I believe, Buttons," I said, dropping my voice, "that Aunt Penelope is really aunt to her, too, and she is coming on by the next train. She is very nice when she is not a cry-baby, and when she doesn't stick pins into you. She has a somewhat yellow complexion, so, of course, the yellow silk dress would suit her." "Yes, miss, I am sure of that," said Buttons. He took me so far that I began to get tired, and the sun was going down behind the hills when we returned to the town. We had very nearly reached the little house of Hill View when I remembered Daddy's half-crown, and that I had never bought a toy.