Reginald if she had much to do with him; but when
the company's gone, sir, and he's left quiet with his papa, you'll
find him as good as any young gentleman needs to be, if you'll excuse
my freedom in speaking, sir."

Whatever my father thought of Mrs. Bundle's freedom of speech, he only
said,

"Master Reginald will be quite under your orders for the future,
Nurse," and so dismissed her.

And Mrs. Bundle having "said her say," withdrew to say it over again
in confidence to the housekeeper.

As for me, if my vanity was stronger than my good taste for a while,
the quickness of childish instinct soon convinced me that Miss Burton
had no real affection for me. Then I was puzzled by her spasmodic
attentions when my father was in the room, and her rough repulses when
I "bothered" her at less appropriate moments. I got tired of her, too,
of the sound of her voice, of her black hair and unchanging red
cheeks. And from the day that I caught her beating Rubens for lying on
the edge of her dress, I lived in terror of her. Those rolling black
eyes had not a pleasant look when the lady was out of temper. And was
she really to be the new mistress of the house? To take the place of
my fair, gentle, beautiful mother? That wave of household gossip which
for ever surges behind the master's back was always breaking over me
now, in expressions of pity for the motherless child of "the dear lady
dead and gone."

"I don't like black hair," I announced one day at luncheon; "I like
beautiful, shining, golden hair, like poor mamma's."

"Don't talk nonsense, Reginald," said my father, angrily, and shortly
afterwards I was dismissed to the nursery.

If I had only had my childish memory to trust to, I do not think that
I could have kept so clear a remembrance of my mother as I had. But in
my father's dressing-room there hung a water-colour sketch of his
young wife, with me--her first baby--on her lap. It was a very happy
portrait. The little one was nestled in her arms, and she herself was
just looking up with a bright smile of happiness and pride. That look
came full at the spectator, and perhaps it was because it was so very
lifelike that I had (ever since I could remember) indulged a curious
freak of childish sentiment by nodding to the picture and saying,
"Good-morning, mamma," whenever I came into the room. Such little
superstitions become part of one's life, and I freely confess that I
salute that portrait still! I remember, too, tha