There was something so strange in this apparition in the lonely room that the squire did not speak for a moment. It flashed across him vaguely that there was something familiar to him in the face and expression, something which sent a thrill through him; and at the same instant, without knowing why, he felt that there was a connection between the appearance of the child and the matter he had just been thinking of—John Petersham’s strange conduct. He was still looking at her when she advanced quietly towards him.
"Grandpapa," she said, "I am Aggie Linthorne."
A low cry of astonishment broke from the squire. He pushed his chair back.
"Can it be true," he muttered, "or am I dreaming?"
"Yes, grandpapa," the child said, close beside him now, "I am Aggie Linthorne, and I have come to see you. If you don’t think it’s me, grampa said I was to give you this and then you would know;" and she held out a miniature on ivory of a boy some fourteen years old, and a watch and chain.
"I do not need them," the squire said in low tones, "I see it in your face. You are Herbert’s child, whom I looked for so long. Oh! my child! my child! have you come at last?" and he drew her towards him and kissed her passionately, while the tears streamed down his cheeks.
"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.
"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.