"Penelope," he exclaimed, "don't you know your Uncle Rufus?"
There was no particular reason why Penelope should know her Uncle Rufus. She could have submitted herself as easily to the embrace of any well-dressed, smiling stranger, and she shrank back, but my mother pushed her forward within reach of the restless hands.
"It's your dear uncle, child," she said soothingly. "He has come to take you to a nice home."
"And he is going to bring you up," my father added in a wonderfully cheerful voice, born either from his own escape from responsibility or her brightened prospects. "He is going to give you everything."
Penelope was on the verge of tears, but she held them back. "I don't want everything," she said, as she strove to check her forced advance by planting her feet firmly and leaning back against my mother. "I just want to stay here till father comes."
"But your father will come to us--of course, he will come to us, Penelope," Mr. Blight cried. His hands closed on hers, he hooked an arm about her and held her very cautiously, as though he were as afraid of her as she of him. "You mustn't be frightened, my dear," he went on, and, soothed by his kindly tones, she leaned against his knee. "That's better, child." Encouraged by her half-yielding attitude, he stroked her hair. To me, watching them from the hiding of my mother's skirt, she had fallen into a magician's clutches and was being lulled by soft words into an indifference to danger.
"I'm your father's brother, child," he pursued, in his insinuating tone. "Next to him I'm nearer to you than any one else, and to me there is no one as near as he. We will try to find him together--you and I, eh? And we'll all live together in Pittsburgh. You'll like Pittsburgh--it's a very lively, pushing town."
"But I want to stay here with Davy," said Penelope in a low voice.
"With Davy?" Mr. Blight stared at her in surprise. Then he began to laugh as though he were contrasting all he could give her with Davy's humble powers. "Child--child--you don't realize what you are refusing. You don't realize what your Uncle Rufus is going to do for you. I've no one to look after--you will be the joy of a poor old bachelor's heart, won't you, now?"