The child had sat quietly down in a chair, and was looking into the
fire while the two men were speaking. She had done what she was told to
do, and was waiting quietly for what was to come next. Her quick ear,
however, caught, in the tones of John Petersham, an apologetic tone
when speaking of her grandfather, and she was moved to instant anger.

"Why do you speak like that of my grampa?" she said, rising to her
feet, and standing indignantly before him. "He is the best man in the
world, and the kindest and the nicest, and if you don't like him, I can
go away to him again. I don't want to stay here, not one minute.

"You may be my grandpapa," she went on, turning to the squire, "and you
may be lonely, but he is lonely, too, and you have got a great house,
and all sorts of nice things; and you can do better without me than he
can, for he has got nothing to love but me, poor grampa!"

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."