They looked in at Beechcroft Cottage with the tidings.
‘All safe, I see!’ cried Miss Jane. ‘Is the money found?’
‘No; Mrs. Stebbing burnt it, under the impression that it was a love-letter,’ drily said Sir Jasper.
Miss Mohun led the way in the hearty fit of laughter, to which the gentlemen gave way the more heartily for recent suppression; and Mr. White added—
‘I assure you, it was as good as a play to hear Sir Jasper worm it out. One would think he had been bred a lawyer.’
‘And now,’ said the General, ‘I must go and relieve that poor girl’s suspense.’
‘I will come with you,’ volunteered Mr. White. ‘I fully believe that she is a good girl, though this business and Master Richard’s applications staggered me; and this soldier fellow must be an ass if he is not a scamp.’
‘Scarcely that, I think,’ said Miss Adelaide, with her pleading smile.
‘Well, discipline will be as good for him as for his father,’ said Mr. White. ‘He has done for himself, but that was a nice little lad that you had up—too good for a common national school.’
Wherewith they departed, and found that Kalliope must have been on the watch, for she ran down to open the door to them, and the gladness which irradiated her face as Sir Jasper’s first ‘All right,’ lighted up her features, which were so unlike the shop-girl prettiness that Mr. White expected as quite to startle him.