to know that you had knowingly taken in his granddaughter, there was no
saying how he might have viewed it. Then, if you had known it, you
might have thought you ought to keep her in, and not let her run about
the country with your son; and altogether, it would not have been so
comfortable for you or her. I chose to put her at Sidmouth because I
wanted to come here often, to hear how the squire was going on; for if
he had been taken ill I should have told him sooner than I intended."

"But why did you not tell him before?" Mrs. Walsham asked.

"Just selfishness, ma'am. I could not bring myself to run the risk of
having to give her up. She was mine as much as his, and was a hundred
times more to me than she could be to him. I took her a baby from her
dead mother's arms. I fed her and nursed her, taught her her first
words and her first prayer. Why should I offer to give her up to him
who, likely enough, would not accept the offer when it was made to him?
But I always intended to make it some day. It was my duty to give her
the chance at least; but I kept on putting off the day, till that
Saturday when she was so nearly drowned; then I saw my duty before me."

"I had, from the first, put aside a hundred pounds, to give her more of
an education than I could do; but if it hadn't been for that fall into
the sea, it might have been years before I carried out my plan. Then I
saw it could not go on any longer. She was getting too old and too bold
to sit quiet while I was showing my box. She had had a narrow escape,
and who could say what might happen the next time she got into
mischief? Then I bethought me that the squire was growing old, and that
it was better not to put it off too long. So, ma'am, I came to you and
made up my mind to put her with you."