“That may be so, Sergeant Wilks; but his son’s death certainly broke him down terribly, and it may be that he will gladly receive his granddaughter.

“But there are the young ones back again.  I will think over what you have been telling me, and we can discuss it again tomorrow.”

Chapter 4:  The Squire’s Granddaughter.

The following day another council was held, and Mrs. Walsham told the sergeant that, on thinking it over, she had concluded that the best way would be to take the old butler at the Hall, who had served the family for forty-five years, into their confidence, and to ask him to arrange how best Aggie might be introduced to the squire.

“I have been thinking over what you said, ma’am, and it may be that you are right, and that I have partly misjudged the squire.  I hope so, for Aggie’s sake, and yet I cannot help feeling sorry.  I have always felt almost sure he would have nothing to say to her, and I have clung to the hope that I should not lose my little girl.  I know, of course, how much better it will be for her, and have done all I could to make her so that she should be fit for it, if he took her.  But it will be a wrench, ma’am.  I can’t help feeling it will be a wrench;” and the old soldier’s voice quivered as he spoke.

“It cannot be otherwise, sergeant,” Mrs. Walsham said kindly.  “You have been everything to each other, and though, for her good and happiness, you are ready to give her up, it is a heavy sacrifice for you to make.”

That afternoon, the sergeant went for a long walk alone with Aggie, and when they returned Mrs. Walsham saw, by the flushed cheeks and the swollen eyes of the child, that she had been crying.  James noticed it also, and saw that she seemed depressed and quiet.  He supposed that her grandfather had been telling her that he was going to take her away, for hitherto nothing had been said, in her hearing, as to the approaching termination of the stay with his mother.

As they came out of church, Mrs. Walsham had waited for a moment at the door, and had told the butler at the Hall that she wished particularly to speak to him, that afternoon, if he could manage to come down.  They were not strangers, for the doctor had attended John’s wife in her last illness, and he had sometimes called with messages from the Hall, when the doctor was wanted there.

John Petersham was astonished, indeed, when Mrs. Walsham informed him that the little girl he had seen in her pew, in church, was his master’s granddaughter.

“You don’t say so, ma’am.  You don’t say as that pretty little thing is Master Herbert’s child!  But why didn’t you say so afore?  Why, I have caught myself looking at her, and wondering how it was that I seemed to know her face so well; and now, of course, I sees it.  She is the picture of Master Herbert when he was little.”

“I couldn’t say so before, John, because I only knew it myself last night.  Her grandfather—­that is, her other grandfather, you know—­placed her with me to educate, and, as he said, to make a little lady of, two years ago; but it was only last night he told me.”