The
Burtons left Dacrefield the next morning, and at lunch Aunt Maria
"pulled them to pieces" with as little remorse as a cook would pluck a
partridge. I never saw Miss Eliza Burton again.
Aunt Maria did not fondle or spoil me. She might perhaps have shown
more tenderness to her brother's only and motherless child; but, after
Miss Burton, hers was a fault on the right side. She had a kindly
interest in me, and she showed it by asking me to pay her a visit in
London.
"It will do the child good, Regie," she said to my father. "He will be
with other children, and all our London sights will be new to him. I
will take every care of him, and you must come up and fetch him back.
It will do you good too."
"To be sure!" chimed in Uncle Ascott, patting me good-naturedly on the
head; "Master Reginald will fancy himself in Fairy Land. There are the
Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's Waxwork Exhibition, and the
Pantomime, and no one knows what besides! We shall make him quite at
home! He and Helen are just the same age, I think, and Polly's a year
or so younger, eh, mamma?"
"Nineteen months," said Aunt Maria, decisively; and she turned once
more to my father, upon whom she was urging certain particulars.
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