“Dear me, dear me,” Mrs. Walsham said, “what an extraordinary thing!  Of course I remember Herbert Linthorne, a handsome, pleasant young fellow.  He was on bad terms, as everyone heard, eight years ago, with his father, because he married somebody beneath—­I mean somebody of whom the squire did not approve.  A year afterwards, we heard that he was dead, and there was a report that his wife was dead, too, but that was only a rumour.  The squire went away just at the time, and did not come back for months afterwards, and after that he was altogether changed.  Before, he had been one of the most popular men in this part of the country, but now he shut himself up, gave up all his acquaintances, and never went outside the park gates except to come down to church.  I remember it gave us quite a shock when we saw him for the first time—­he seemed to have grown an old man all at once.  Everyone said that the death of his son had broken his heart.

“And Aggie is his granddaughter!  Well, well, you have astonished me.  But why did you not tell me before?”

“There were a good many reasons, ma’am.  I thought, in the first place, you might refuse me, if you knew, for it might do you harm.  The squire is a vindictive man, and he is landlord of your house; and if he came to know that you had knowingly taken in his granddaughter, there was no saying how he might have viewed it.  Then, if you had known it, you might have thought you ought to keep her in, and not let her run about the country with your son; and altogether, it would not have been so comfortable for you or her.  I chose to put her at Sidmouth because I wanted to come here often, to hear how the squire was going on; for if he had been taken ill I should have told him sooner than I intended.”

“But why did you not tell him before?” Mrs. Walsham asked.

“Just selfishness, ma’am.  I could not bring myself to run the risk of having to give her up.  She was mine as much as his, and was a hundred times more to me than she could be to him.  I took her a baby from her dead mother’s arms.  I fed her and nursed her, taught her her first words and her first prayer.  Why should I offer to give her up to him who, likely enough, would not accept the offer when it was made to him?  But I always intended to make it some day.  It was my duty to give her the chance at least; but I kept on putting off the day, till that Saturday when she was so nearly drowned; then I saw my duty before me.”

“I had, from the first, put aside a hundred pounds, to give her more of an education than I could do; but if it hadn’t been for that fall into the sea, it might have been years before I carried out my plan.  Then I saw it could not go on any longer.  She was getting too old and too bold to sit quiet while I was showing my box.  She had had a narrow escape, and who could say what might happen the next time she got into mischief?  Then I bethought me that the squire was growing old, and that it was better not to put it off too long.  So, ma’am, I came to you and made up my mind to put her with you.”