amusing himself, she was content to sit hours quietly beside him,
chattering incessantly, and quite content with an occasional brief
answer to the questions. When he was studying, she too would work at
her lessons; and however much she might be puzzled over these, she
would never disturb him by asking him questions when so engaged.

She was an intelligent child, and the hour's lesson, morning and
afternoon, soon grew into two. She was eager to learn, and rapidly
gained ground on Mrs. Walsham's older pupils. During the two years,
that lady never had cause to regret that she had yielded to the
sergeant's entreaties. Aggie was no trouble in the house, which she
brightened with her childish laughter and merry talk; and her
companionship, James's mother could not but think, did the boy much
good. It softened his manner, and, although he still often went out
with the fishermen, he was no longer thrown entirely for companionship
upon the boys on the beach.

The sergeant came and went, seldom being more than two months without
paying a visit to Sidmouth. The child was always delighted to see her
grandfather, and James took to him greatly, and liked nothing better
than to stroll up with him to a sheltered spot on the hillside, where
he would throw himself down on the grass, while the sergeant smoked his
pipe and told him stories of his travels and adventures, and Aggie ran
about looking for wildflowers, or occasionally sat down, for a while,
to listen also.

The squire lived his usual lonely life up at the Hall. The absence of
his nephew, whose ship had sailed for a foreign station, was a relief
rather than otherwise to him. It had, from the first, been a painful
effort to him to regard this boy as his heir, and he had only done it