“Tch! tch! tch!  How lazy you English are!  We all speak English.  As for me, my mother was English—­you could not tell that I was not born an Englishman?”

Apart from his appearance and guttural r’s, this claim was justified.

“I suppose you made lots of friends on board ship?”

“Yes, a good many.”

“Girls, I suppose—­idle girls, who will come buzzing round to coax you to play with them.  That is all they are good for; but you will have your work, as I have pointed out.  If you are industrious, I shall lend you a horse that was your aunt’s—­he is not up to my weight—­and I will take you to our fine club when I can spare an afternoon.  At present, I am immensely occupied, engaged in collecting wolfram.  Do you know what wolfram is?”

“No, I have never heard of it,” humbly admitted Sophy.

“Well, it is ore used for hardening steel—­extremely scarce and valuable; it comes from Tavoy, but business connected with it takes me up and down the river, and even as far as Calcutta and Singapore.  Now, with you to look after the house and your aunt, I shall feel so free and easy in my mind.  Ah, here we are; this is ‘Heidelberg,’” he said, as the car swung in between two tall gate piers.

“Heidelberg” was a good-sized residence, with spacious surroundings; palms, bamboos and crotona abounded, and a wonderful collection of gigantic cannas—­red, yellow and orange—­gave colour to the compound.  A crowd of lazy retainers, who were hanging about, gaped in silence upon the new arrival.

“Now, I’ll take you to your aunt at once,” said Krauss, descending heavily from the car, but making no effort to assist his niece.  Then he led the way upstairs, striding along the veranda with a heavy, despotic tread, and through a large, dim drawing-room, where Sophy caught an impression of much carved furniture, the figure of a large alabaster Buddha gleaming through the shadows, and a stifling atmosphere of dust and sandalwood.  Pushing aside a tinkling bamboo screen, they entered another apartment, which was yet gloomier and more obscure, and here on a wide sofa, propped, among large, silk cushions, lay a sick and wasted woman, who turned on Sophy a sallow face and a pair of drowsy, dark eyes.

“Here is your new treasure, mein schatz,” announced her husband!  “I brought her straight up.”

“Oh, dear child,” she murmured, “this is one of my—­my dreadful days; so sorry—­so sorry—­so sorry,” and she slowly closed her eyes upon her pretty niece.

Sophy stooped and lifted her hand (which was limp and clammy) to her lips, and said to herself, as she did so, that poor Aunt Flora was woefully changed.  She recalled her as a beautiful vision, beautifully dressed, and so gay.  Now her face was yellow and withered, and she looked positively old and gaunt.