also, and saw that she seemed depressed and quiet. He supposed that her
grandfather had been telling her that he was going to take her away,
for hitherto nothing had been said, in her hearing, as to the
approaching termination of the stay with his mother.

As they came out of church, Mrs. Walsham had waited for a moment at the
door, and had told the butler at the Hall that she wished particularly
to speak to him, that afternoon, if he could manage to come down. They
were not strangers, for the doctor had attended John's wife in her last
illness, and he had sometimes called with messages from the Hall, when
the doctor was wanted there.

John Petersham was astonished, indeed, when Mrs. Walsham informed him
that the little girl he had seen in her pew, in church, was his
master's granddaughter.

"You don't say so, ma'am. You don't say as that pretty little thing is
Master Herbert's child! But why didn't you say so afore? Why, I have
caught myself looking at her, and wondering how it was that I seemed to
know her face so well; and now, of course, I sees it. She is the
picture of Master Herbert when he was little."

"I couldn't say so before, John, because I only knew it myself last
night. Her grandfather--that is, her other grandfather, you
know--placed her with me to educate, and, as he said, to make a little
lady of, two years ago; but it was only last night he told me."

"Only to think of it!" the butler ejaculated. "What will the squire
say?"