m that she made him stand in the corner
till teatime.

'For you're not a bit sorry, and will be sure to run away again
directly you get a chance,' she said.

Bobby turned his face to the wall with heaving chest.

'I wants to find my father,' he said.

He little knew how very close he had been to the end of that search.

Chapter VI.

HIS FATHER.

'Master Bobby is wanted in the drawing-room.'

Jane brought this message up just as the nursery tea was being cleared
away.

'Are there visitors?' enquired Nurse.

'Yes; a gentleman.'

It was only on rare occasions that the child was sent for. Nurse was
in a flutter at once, putting on his best brown velvet suit, with his
little cream-silk shirt, and brushing out his curls with great skill
and care.

Bobby did not like the summons at all. He remembered the last time he
had been in the drawing-room. It was to see an old clergyman who had
patted him on the head and asked him if he knew his Catechism. He had
wriggled away from him, and upset a vase of flowers upon a table near,
and had been sent upstairs in disgrace, his grandmother declaring that
'children were always out of place in a drawing-room.'

'It's another old gempleum, Nurse. I don't like them at all.'

But when he opened the drawing-room door he saw his grandmother sitting
in her stiffest sternest attitude, and, seated opposite to her, the
tall man with the bright eyes and the curly hair who had rescued him
that afternoon from the bull.

Bobby's heart sank into his boots at once. So he had come to tell
tales of him to his grandmother. He had had one scolding and a
punishment from Nurse, now he would get another!

'Come here, Bobby,' said his grandmother coldly. 'Your father has come
to see you.'

He could not believe his ears. For an instant he gazed wildly and
uncomprehendingly at the stranger, who turned and held out his hand.

'Why, upon my word! You're the little chap who withstood the furious
bull! Come along. No wonder I felt as I did when I saw you!'

How often had Bobby rehearsed this scene to himself! He had pictured
himself flinging himself with a glad cry into the arms of his father,
and that father gathering him to his breast and smothering him with
kisses. How different was reality to fancy! He was too dazed by the
suddenness of the discovery to do more than stare stupidly up at his
father, who drew him gently to him and kissed him on the forehead.

Then he he