And her eyes filled with sudden tears, as she thought of him tramping on his lonely walks over the hills.

“We do not mean to speak unkindly of your grandfather, my dear,” the squire said gently.  “I have never seen him, you know, and John has never seen him but once.  I have thought, all these years, bitterly of him; but perhaps I have been mistaken.  He has ever been kind and good to you, and, above all, he has given you back to me, and that will make me think differently of him, in future.  We all make mistakes, you know, and I have made terrible mistakes, and have been terribly punished for them.  I daresay I have made a mistake here; but whether or no, you shall never hear a word, from me, against the man who has been so kind to you.”

“And you will let me see him sometimes, grandpapa?” the child said, taking his hand pleadingly.  “He said, if you said no, I must do as you told me; because somehow you are nearer to me than he is, though I don’t know how that can be.  But you won’t say that, will you?  For, oh!  I know he is so lonely without me, and I should never be happy, thinking of him all alone, not if you were to be ever so kind to me, and to give me all sorts of grand things.”

“No, my dear, I certainly shall not say so.  You shall see him as often as you like.”

“Oh, thank you, grandpapa!” she exclaimed joyfully, and she held up her face to kiss him.

The squire lifted her in his arms, and held her closely to him.

“John,” he said, “you must tell Mrs. Morcombe to get a room ready for my granddaughter, at once, and you had better bring the tea in here, and then we will think of other things.  I feel quite bewildered, at present.”

When John returned with the tea, Aggie was sitting on the squire’s knee.  She was perfectly at home, now, and had been chattering to him of her life with her grandfather, and had just related the incident of her narrow escape from drowning.

“Do you hear that, John?” the squire said.  “She was nearly drowned here, within sight of our home, and I might never have known anything about it.  It seems that lad of Dr. Walsham’s saved her life.  He is a fine lad.  He was her champion, you know, in that affair with my nephew.  How strange that the two boys should have quarrelled over my granddaughter!”

“Yes, squire, and young Walsham came well out of it!” John said heartily; for to him, only, did the squire mention the circumstances of the case, and he chuckled now to himself, as he thought that Richard Horton had made an even greater mistake in that matter than he thought of, for John detested the boy with all his heart, and had only abstained from reporting his conduct, to the squire, from fear of giving his master pain.

The squire’s brow clouded a little at the allusion.

“It will make a difference to him, John,” he said, “for, of course, now my granddaughter will take his place.”