"'Why, Penelope!'--I knew I ought to be shocked, but I did not even mind his calling me Penelope--'Why, Penelope, if I could only believe that I had been fortunate enough to make any impression on your sister's heart, I'd be the happiest man on earth, for I love her, Penelope, better than my own life!' Yes, Heather, I can hear him saying those words just as though it were yesterday, and I was ever so pleased, ever so glad; the delight and joy of that moment come back to me even now. Of course, your father and mother got engaged, and everything was as right as possible. They were married, and soon after their marriage they went to India, and in about a year's time I heard of the birth of their child--of you--Heather. Your mother was very poorly after your birth, and had to be sent to the hills, up to a place called Simla. But even the air of the hills did not do her any good. She pined and pined, and faded and faded, and when you were about five years of age she died." "I remember about _afterwards_," I said then, "I saw her after she was dead." "Well, you needn't tell me, the knowledge would be harrowing," said Aunt Penelope. "After your mother's death I wrote to Gordon, proposing to adopt you, and begging of him to send you to me at once. He refused rather shortly, I thought, and said that he preferred you to be near him, and that he knew a family who would keep you in the hills during the hot weather. So the next few years went by. Then, when you were about eight years old I got a letter from your father. He said he was coming back to London, that he wanted to come on special business, and also that he had now changed his mind, and would bring you to me, if I had not changed my mind about having you. Of course I had not, and he brought you, and that was the end of that story. You were left with me and you fared well enough. While your father was in London I saw him several times, and I marked a great change in him, and what I considered a great deterioration of character. He knew the woman he has since made his wife even then, and often spoke of her. She was in society in Calcutta, where his regiment was stationed, and he often met her. He used to mention her in almost every letter he wrote, and I was fairly sick of her name, and also of the name of her brother. I told Gordon so in one of my letters. I said that Lady Helen's brother might be the best man on earth, but that he was nothing at all to me, and that if he wanted to write about him he had better choose another correspondent.