e bushes in the Grange garden she
saw her father coming quickly across the lawn towards her, with a
short, stout gentleman beside him.

"My little girl, where have you been?" he said. "Marie came to me in
great distress just now and told me that Mademoiselle Una was lost, and
we have been looking for you everywhere."

"Father, dear father, don't be angry, please," said Una coaxingly; "but
I've been to tea this afternoon with a dear old lady and gentleman, and
they live in the loveliest garden in the world--at least I think it
must be. And they want me to come again; and I do want to go very
much, please, father. So don't say 'no,' as you do when I want to go
to tea with Norah and Dan. Please, _please_, father, say 'yes.'"

Monsieur Gen hesitated and glanced towards his friend. But the little
stout gentleman was frowning, and Una thought what a disagreeable man
he was, and wished that he had not come home with her father, when they
might have had such a nice evening together, just he and she alone.

"It is not wise to let the child go anywhere she likes among strangers.
You know what children's tongues are like, and how easily stories get
afloat," the stranger said in French.

But Una understood French as well as she understood English, and she
felt very angry with the stranger for trying to persuade her father not
to let her go and see the dear old lady and gentleman again.

"No, dear. You must learn to stay quietly here in the garden," said
her father; and Una said no more then, but walked slowly across the
lawn into the house and upstairs to the nursery, where she was scolded
by old Marie for having run away by herself that afternoon.

And it was not until some hours later--after she had watched the
strange gentleman driving away to the station--that she ran downstairs
to the library and asked the question which had been puzzling her
little brain for the last few weeks.

"Father," she said, "I want to know _why_ I mayn't go and see other
little boys and girls, and go to church, and go to see the people in
the cottages, as Norah and Tom and Ruth do."

CHAPTER VII.

SECRETS.

"What makes you ask that question, Una?" said her father. "When we
have lived in other countries you have never asked to have little boys
and girls to play with, or worried about why you may not go and see
people and go to church; and here you have Norah and Tom and Dan to
play with. Surely that is enough?"

"But I didn