“You are sure?” Grey rejoined, flushing a little, for now he was nearing the real object of his interview with the rector, “You are sure, and Aunt Hannah is sure.  She ought to know.  You believe her a good woman?”

Mr. Sanford could not understand the breathless eagerness with which Grey awaited his reply, which came quickly, decidedly: 

“Your Aunt Hannah!  Yes, she is the best, the truest, the purest woman who ever lived.  She is a martyr, a saint, an angel.  I never knew one like her.”

“Thank you,” Grey said, with a look of intense relief in his eyes.  “You have made me very happy.  I wanted to feel sure, about grandpa; and now, please go.  I am very tired; some time I will see you again.”

So the rector left him, feeling a little disappointed with the result of his interview.  He had hoped that Grey wished to speak with him of himself, and of his new resolves for the future, when, in fact, it was only a wish to be reassured of his grandfather’s safety, which the boy possibly doubted a little because he had never united himself with the church.  That Hannah had anything to do with it the rector never suspected and did not dream of the great gladness in Grey’s heart as he kept repeating to himself: 

“She is good, even if she did know.  She is a saint, a martyr, an angel; and I distrusted her; but all my life hereafter I will devote to her by way of atonement.”

It was late in the afternoon when Hannah returned to Grey’s Park, and went up to see her nephew, of whose improved condition she had heard.

“Oh, auntie,” he cried, when he saw her.  “I am so glad to have you back;” and Hannah did not guess that the boy had her back in more ways than one, but she kissed him, and cried over him, and told him how her heart had ached when she feared she might lose him, and how desolate the world would be without him, while he told her how much he loved her, and how he meant to care for her when he was a man, and take her to Europe, and everywhere.

“And you will grow young again,” he said.  “You have never had any youth, I guess.  How old are you, auntie?”

She told him she was forty-six, and making a little mental subtraction he thought: 

“Fifteen when it happened.  No, she has had no youth, no girlhood;” but to her he said:  “You do not look so old, and you are very pretty still; not exactly like Aunt Lucy or mother.  You are different from them both, though more like Aunt Lucy, whose face is the sweetest I ever saw except yours, which looks as if Christ had put His hand hard upon it and left His impress there.”

There were great tears upon the face where Christ had laid His hands so hard, and Grey kissed them away, and then asked about the old house, and said he was coming to spend the day with her just as soon as possible, and the night, too, adding, in a sudden burst of bravery and enthusiasm: 

“And I’ll sleep in grandpa’s room, if you wish it, I am not afraid because he died in there.”