“I thank the good God for the news you have told me, ma’am; it’s the best I ever heard in all my life.”

Mrs. Walsham now told him how the child had been brought up, and then the sergeant himself, who was waiting in the next room, was brought in; and to him John Petersham related the story of the squire’s illness, the reason of the letters not reaching him for months after they had been written, and his intense sorrow and self reproach at having arrived too late, and told him of the efforts that had been made to find the child.  The sergeant listened in grave silence.

“I am glad it is so,” he said, after a pause.  “I have misjudged the squire, and I am glad of it.  It will be a blow to me to lose the child.  I do not pretend that it won’t; but it is for her good, and I must be content.  He can hardly object to my seeing her sometimes, and if I know that she is well and happy, that is all I care for; and now the sooner it’s over the better.  Can she come up this evening?”

“Surely she can,” John Petersham said.  “The squire dines at five.  If you will bring her up at six, I will take her in to him.”

And so it was arranged, and in his walk with Aggie, afterwards, the sergeant told her the history of her parents, and that Squire Linthorne was her other grandfather, and that she was to go up and see him that evening.

Aggie had uttered her protest against fate.  She did not wish to leave her grampa who had been so good to her, and Mrs. Walsham, and James.  The description of the big house and its grandeurs, and the pleasures of a pony for herself, offered no enticement to her; and, weeping, she flung her arms round her grandfather’s neck and implored him not to give her up.

“I must, my dear.  It is my duty.  I wish to God that it were not.  You know how I love you, Aggie, and how hard it is for me to part with you; but it is for your good, my darling.  You mayn’t see it now, but when you get older you will know it.  It will not be so hard now on me, dear, nor on you, as it would have been had I given you up two years ago; but we have learned to do a little without each other.”

“But you will come and see me, just as you have here, won’t you?” Aggie said, still weeping.

“I hope so, my dear.  You see, the squire is your father’s father, while I am only your mother’s father, and somehow the law makes him nearer to you than I am, and he will have the right to say what you must do.”

“I won’t stay with him.  I won’t,” Aggie said passionately, “if he won’t let you come.”

“You must not say that, dear,” the sergeant said.  “We must all do our duty, even when that duty is hard to do, and your duty will be to obey the squire’s orders, and to do as he tells you.  I have no doubt he will be very kind, and that you will be very happy with him, and I hope he will let you see me sometimes.”

It was a long time before the child was at all reconciled.  When her sobs began to cease, her grandfather told her what she was to do when she saw the squire.