m was delighted with the offer, even more for James's sake
than her own, although the prospect for herself was most pleasant. To
have only Aggie to teach, and walk with, would be delightful after the
monotony of drilling successive batches of girls, often inordinately
tiresome and stupid. She said, at once, that she should prefer
returning home at night--a decision which pleased the squire, for he
had wondered what he should do with her in the evening.

The arrangement was at once carried into effect. The school was broken
up, and, as the parents of the children were almost all tenants of the
squire, they offered no objection to the girls being suddenly left on
their hands, when they heard that their teacher was going to live as
governess at the Hall. Indeed, the surprise of Sidmouth and the
neighbourhood, at learning that the little girl at Mrs. Walsham's was
the squire's granddaughter, and that the showman was therefore a
connection of the squire, and was going also to live at the Hall, was
so great, that there was no room for any other emotion. Save for
wrecks, or the arrival of shoals of fish off the coast, or of troubles
between the smugglers and the revenue officers, Sidmouth had few
excitements, and the present news afforded food for endless talk and
conjecture.

On comparing notes, it appeared that there was not a woman in the place
who had not been, all along, convinced that the little girl at Mrs.
Walsham's was something more than she seemed to be, and that the
showman was a man quite out of the ordinary way. And when, on the
following Sunday, the sergeant, who had in the meantime been to Exeter,
walked quietly into church with the squire, all agreed that the
well-dressed military-looking man was a gentleman, and that he had only
been masquerading under the name of Sergeant Wilks until, somehow or
other, the quarrel between him and the squire was arranged, and the
little heiress restored to her position; and Sidmouth remained in that
belief to the end.

The sergeant's military title was henceforth dropped. Mr. Linthorne
introduced him to his acquaintances--who soon began to flock in, when
it was known that the squire's granddaughter had come home, and that he
was willing to see his friends and join in society again--as "My friend
Mr. Wilks, the father of my poor boy's wife."

And the impression made was generally favourable.

None had ever known the exact story of Herbert's marriage. It was
generally sup