For two years after Richard Horton’s departure, things went on quietly at Sidmouth.  James Walsham continued to make a pet and a playmate of little Aggie.  Her out-of-door life had made her strong and sturdy, and she was able to accompany him in all his rambles, while, when he was at work at home preparing fishing lines, making boats, or otherwise amusing himself, she was content to sit hours quietly beside him, chattering incessantly, and quite content with an occasional brief answer to the questions.  When he was studying, she too would work at her lessons; and however much she might be puzzled over these, she would never disturb him by asking him questions when so engaged.

She was an intelligent child, and the hour’s lesson, morning and afternoon, soon grew into two.  She was eager to learn, and rapidly gained ground on Mrs. Walsham’s older pupils.  During the two years, that lady never had cause to regret that she had yielded to the sergeant’s entreaties.  Aggie was no trouble in the house, which she brightened with her childish laughter and merry talk; and her companionship, James’s mother could not but think, did the boy much good.  It softened his manner, and, although he still often went out with the fishermen, he was no longer thrown entirely for companionship upon the boys on the beach.

The sergeant came and went, seldom being more than two months without paying a visit to Sidmouth.  The child was always delighted to see her grandfather, and James took to him greatly, and liked nothing better than to stroll up with him to a sheltered spot on the hillside, where he would throw himself down on the grass, while the sergeant smoked his pipe and told him stories of his travels and adventures, and Aggie ran about looking for wildflowers, or occasionally sat down, for a while, to listen also.

The squire lived his usual lonely life up at the Hall.  The absence of his nephew, whose ship had sailed for a foreign station, was a relief rather than otherwise to him.  It had, from the first, been a painful effort to him to regard this boy as his heir, and he had only done it when heartsick from a long and fruitless search for one who would have been nearer and dearer to him.  Nor had he ever taken to the lad personally.  The squire felt that there was not the ring of true metal in him.  The careless way in which he spoke of his parents showed a want of heart; and although his uncle was ignorant how much the boy made himself disliked in the household, he was conscious, himself, of a certain antipathy for him, which led him to see as little of him as possible.

The two years, for which the sergeant had placed his grandchild with Mrs. Walsham, came to an end.  That he did not intend to continue the arrangement, she judged from something he said on the occasion of his last visit, two months before the time was up, but he gave no hint as to what he intended to do with her.