uct. He was still
looking at her, when she advanced quietly towards him.

"Grandpapa," she said, "I am Aggie Linthorne."

A low cry of astonishment broke from the squire. He pushed his chair
back.

"Can it be true?" he muttered. "Or am I dreaming?"

"Yes, grandpapa," the child said, close beside him now. "I am Aggie
Linthorne, and I have come to see you. If you don't think it's me,
grampa said I was to give you this, and then you would know;" and she
held out a miniature, on ivory, of a boy some fourteen years old; and a
watch and chain.

"I do not need them," the squire said, in low tones. "I see it in your
face. You are Herbert's child, whom I looked for so long.

"Oh! my child! my child! have you come at last?" and he drew her
towards him, and kissed her passionately, while the tears streamed down
his cheeks.

"I couldn't come before, you know," the child said, "because I didn't
know about you; and grampa, that's my other grandpapa," she nodded
confidentially, "did not know you wanted me. But now he knows, he sent
me to you. He told me I was to come because you were lonely.

"But you can't be more lonely than he is," she said, with a quiver in
her voice. "Oh! he will be lonely, now!"

"But where do you come from, my dear? and how did you get here? and
what have you been doing, all these years?"

"Grampa brought me here," the child said. "I call him grampa, you know,
because I did when I was little, and I have always kept to it; but I
know, of course, it ought to be grandpapa. He brought me here, and
John--at least he called him John--brought me in. And I have been
living, for two years, with Mrs. Walsham down in the town, and I used
to see you in church, but I did not know that you were my grandpapa."

The squire, who was holding her close to him while she spoke, got up
and rang the bell; and John opened the door, with a quickness that
showed that he had been waiting close to it, anxiously waiting a
summons.

"John Petersham," the squire said, "give me your hand. This is the
happiest day of my life."

The two men wrung each other's hands. They had been friends ever since
John Petersham, who was twelve years the senior of the two, first came
to the house, a young fellow of eighteen, to assist his father, who had
held the same post before him.

"God be thanked, squire!" he said huskily.

"God be thanked, indeed, John!" the squire rejoined, reverently. "So
this was the reason, old friend, why your ha