"I couldn't come before, you know," the child said, "because I didn't
know about you, and grampa--that's my other grandpapa, you know--did not
know you wanted me; but now he knows he sent me to you. He told me I was
to come because you were lonely; but you can't be more lonely than he
is," she said, with a quiver in her voice.
"Oh! he will be lonely now!"
"But where did you come from, my dear, and how did you get here, and
what have you been doing all these years?"
"Grampa brought me here," the child said. "I call him grampa, you know,
because I did when I was little, and I have always kept to it; but I
know, of course, it ought to be grandpapa. He brought me here, and
John--at least he called him John--brought me in. And I have been
living for two years with Mrs. Walsham down in the town, and I used to
see you in church, but I did not know that you were my grandpapa."
The squire, who was holding her close to him while she spoke, got up and
rang the bell, and John opened the door with a quickness that showed
that he had been standing close to it, anxiously waiting a summons.
"John Petersham," the squire said, "give me your hand; this is the
happiest day of my life!"
The two men wrung each other's hands. They had been friends ever since
John Petersham, who was twelve years the senior of the two, first came
to the house, a young fellow of eighteen, to assist his father, who had
held the same post before him.
"God be thanked, squire!" he said huskily.
"God be thanked, indeed, John!" the squire rejoined reverently. "So
this was the reason, old friend, why your hand shook as you poured out
my wine. How could you keep the secret from me?"
"I did not know how to begin to tell you, but I was pretty nigh letting
it out, and only the thought that it was better the little lady should
tell you herself, as we had agreed, kept it in. Only to think, squire,
after all these years! but I never quite gave her up. I always thought
somehow that she would come just like this."
"Did you, John? I gave up hope years ago. How did it come about,
John?"
"Mrs. Walsham told me as I came out of church to-day that she wanted to
speak to me, so I went down, and she told me all about it, and then I
saw him--"
John hesitated at the name, for he knew that perhaps the only man in the
world against whom his master cherished a bitter resentment was the
father of his son's wife.
"It seems he never saw your advertisements, never knew you wanted to
hear anything of the child, so he took her away and kept her. He has
been here off and on all these years. I heard of him often and often
when I had been down into Sidmouth, but never dreamt it was him. He
went about the country with a box on wheels with glasses--a peep-show
they call it."
The squire winced.
"He is well spoken of, squire," John said, "and I am bound to say he
doesn't seem the sort of man we took him for at all. He did not know
that you wanted to have her, but he thought it his duty to give her the
chance, and so he put her with Mrs. Walsham, and never told her till
yesterday who she was. Mrs. Walsham was quite grieved at parting with
her, for she says she is wonderfully quick at her lessons, and has been
like a daughter with her for the last two years."