"I'm generally called Aunt Sarah," was the reply; "and now, look here, you two little mites; I'll be good to you if you'll let me. I'm real sorry you has come, and it's against my wish, you remember that. Now, eat up your breakfasts, both of you. Uncle Ben, he don't know that I have brought you porridge and milk; but children as young as you are can't eat coarse food. Sup up your porridge, my dears."
"Thank you very much indeed, Aunt Sawah," said Diana, slipping down from her seat close to Orion on the bench, and preparing to attack her breakfast. "P'w'aps," she continued, as she put great mouthfuls of porridge into her mouth, "when we has finished this nice bekfus you'll take us back to Wectory? You see, you isn't our aunt weally, not by no manner of wights, and Uncle Ben isn't our uncle, and so we ought not to stay here; and if we go back to Wectory, why, Uncle William, what's our weal uncle, p'w'aps he would pay you money, if it's money you wants."
"Yes; it's true enough, it is money we want," replied the woman; "but, my dear," she added, the tears springing to her eyes, "I can't take you back to no Rectory. You have just got to stay here and to watch Uncle Ben when he's going through his rehearsal, and then this afternoon we are going on a very long journey, and you are coming with us--and oh, I forgot to say that, when you have finished your breakfast, I must put something on your faces."
"Yes, my little love; it has to be done. But when we get to another part of the country I'll wash the ugly stuff off again, and you'll look as fair and pretty as you do now. It won't make much difference after all to you, little missy," she added, gazing fixedly at Diana, "'cos you are very dark by nature. Yes, I had a little kid of my own, a little gal, and she wasn't unlike you--no, not by no means. I'll be kind to you for her pretty sake, my little dear. Now, eat your breakfast, and be quick, the pair of you."
"Has your little girl what was like me got deaded?" asked Diana, in a very thoughtful and earnest voice.
"She is dead, my dear. Yes, yes, she is dead," replied the woman. "Eat up your breakfast now; I have no time to answer questions."
Orion did not need a second bidding; he had already plunged his spoon into the porridge, and soon his little bowl was empty, and also the jug of milk. Diana also finished her breakfast, but more thoughtfully. She was a wonderfully wise little girl for her tender years, and at the present moment she was dreadfully puzzled to know what to do. She was quite shrewd enough to guess that Mother Rodesia was a bad sort of woman, and that she, Diana, had done wrong ever to trust herself to her. Uncle Ben, too, in spite of her brave words, terrified her more or less. All things considered, therefore, she would not have been at all sorry to find herself back again at the Rectory, with Miss Ramsay to teach her, and Aunt Jane hovering in the background. "Isn't it funny, we has got our nightdwesses on?" she said suddenly. "Woman, it's not pwoper to have our bekfus in our nightdwesses; and these are such keer nightdwesses, not at all what they ought to be. Our mother would not like us to be dwessed in this sort of style. Can you get our day dwesses, p'ease, for us to put on, Aunt Sawah?"