rd for a bit. Master Herbert's marriage
was a sad disappointment to him. He had made up his mind he was going
to do so well, and to cut such a figure in the world; but he would have
come round. Lord bless you, he only meant to hold out for a bit. When
he was ill at Athens, he was talking all the time about forgiving his
son, and I could see how hard it had been to him to keep separated from
him. On the voyage home he fidgeted ever so at the delay, and I knew
that the first thing he did, when he got back, would be to write to
Master Herbert and tell him to bring his wife down to the Hall. There's
not a hard corner in the squire's heart.

"I thank the good God for the news you have told me, ma'am; it's the
best I ever heard in all my life."

Mrs. Walsham now told him how the child had been brought up, and then
the sergeant himself, who was waiting in the next room, was brought in;
and to him John Petersham related the story of the squire's illness,
the reason of the letters not reaching him for months after they had
been written, and his intense sorrow and self reproach at having
arrived too late, and told him of the efforts that had been made to
find the child. The sergeant listened in grave silence.

"I am glad it is so," he said, after a pause. "I have misjudged the
squire, and I am glad of it. It will be a blow to me to lose the child.
I do not pretend that it won't; but it is for her good, and I must be
content. He can hardly object to my seeing her sometimes, and if I know
that she is well and happy, that is all I care for; and now the sooner
it's over the better. Can she come up this evening?"

"Surely she can," John Petersham said. "The squire dines at five. If
you will bring her up at six, I will take her in to him."

And so it was arranged, and in his walk with Aggie, afterwards, the
sergeant told her the history of her parents, and that Squire Linthorne
was her other grandfather, and that she was to go up and see him that
evening.

Aggie had uttered her protest against fate. She did not wish to leave
her grampa who had been so good to her, and Mrs. Walsham, and James.
The description of the big house and its grandeurs, and the pleasures
of a pony for herself, offered no enticement to her; and, weeping, she
flung her arms round her grandfather's neck and implored him not to
give her up.

"I must, my dear. It is my duty. I wish to God that it were not. You
know how I love you, Aggie, and how hard it is fo