thing was planned and arranged by you from the
first, when you found he was set upon leaving home."

Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot nodded his head.

"That is all right. Years hence, when he has grown up into a good and
sensible man, we may, or if I am no longer here, _you_ may tell him all
about it, my dears. But just now it would mortify him, and prevent the
lesson from doing him the good we hope for. I should not at all like him
to know I had employed detectives. He would be angry at having been
taken in. That Jowett is a very decent fellow, and did his part well;
but he has mismanaged the letters somehow. I must see him about that.
What was the address Geoff gave in his note to Vicky? Are you sure she
put it right?"

"Oh yes," said Frances; "I saw it both times. It was--

'TO MR. JAMES,
CARE OF MR. ADAM SMITH,
MURRAY PLACE MEWS.'"

"Hoot-toot!" said Mr. Byrne. He could not make it out. But we, who know
in what a hurry Geoff wrote his note at the railway-station while Jowett
was waiting to take it, can quite well understand why Vicky's letters
had never reached him. For the address he _should_ have given was--

"ABEL SMITH,
_Mowbray_ PLACE MEWS."

"This time," Mr. Byrne went on, "I'll see that the letter is sent to him
direct. Jowett must manage it. Let Vicky address as before, and I'll see
that it reaches him."

"What do you think she should write?" said Mrs. Tudor, anxiously.

"What she feels. It does not much matter. But let her make him
understand that his home is open to him as ever--that he is neither
forgotten nor thought of harshly. If I mistake not, from what I saw and
what Eames told me, he will be so happy to find it is so, that all the
better side of his character will come out. And he will say more to
himself than any of us would ever wish to say to him."

"But, uncle dear," said Elsa, "if it turns out as you hope, and poor
Geoff comes home again and is all you and mamma wish--and--if _all_ your
delightful plans are realized, won't Geoff find out everything you don't
want him to know at present? Indeed, aren't you afraid he may have heard
already that you are the new squire there?"

"No," said Mr. Byrne. "Eames is a very cautious fellow; and from having
known me long ago, or rather from his father having known me (it was I
that got my cousin to give him the farm some years ago, as I told you),
I found it easy to make him understand all I wished. Crickwood Bolders
has stood empty so long, that the p