"And where is Humphrey going to live?" enquired Miss Bird, who had gathered certain facts from her correspondence with the twins, and had no wish to be indiscreet, but did wish to know.
"Oh, he'll settle down in London," said the Squire. "It will suit him and Lady Susan better; and he's getting on well with his work and has to be near it," and Miss Bird was too discreet to indicate that she had heard that he had been going to give up his work.
"We hope that they will come here often," said Mrs. Clinton. "The idea was that they should go to the dower-house when Dick and Virginia didn't want it, but there is plenty of room here, as you know, and they chose not to have the responsibility of another house."
Miss Bird was well posted in the general hang of family affairs when she presently went upstairs with the twins, but it remained for them to enlighten her on the events that had led up to the existing state of things.
They took her to her old room, which had been in the occupancy of Miss Phipp. "We told mother we were sure you would like to sleep here," said Joan, "and we've cleared all her things out, and made it just like it used to be for you."
"Darlings!" said Miss Bird. "It will be like old times and I shall scarcely be able to sleep for happiness oh, look at the daffodils under the trees."
"We didn't think you'd want to be bothered up with her books," said Nancy, "so we've put the ones you like instead. The Pilgrim's Progress and Longfellow and The Wide, Wide World. You'll be able to cry over that to-morrow before you get up."
Miss Bird was nearly overcome again by these thoughtful preparations for her happiness. "Now I'll just take off my things pets and then we'll have a cosey time in the schoolroom I'm so looking forward to seeing it again you go and take off your things too and I'll come in a minute."
"If you would like to look through her photographs," said Nancy, as they were leaving the room, "they're all in this drawer; but they're not very interesting. Hullo, here's Hannah—always on the spot when she isn't wanted, and never there when she is."
"Indeed, Miss Nancy," said Hannah, "and I suppose I may come and see Miss Bird without stepping out of my place, which unwilling I should be to do, and Miss Bird always treating me as a perfect lady, and very pleased all are to see her back again, high and low."