"Ah, well," he said, and his voice quavered as he spoke, "there is no saying how things will be at the last. I change my plans, and then I change them again. Sometimes I think I am getting old and weak, and do not know my own mind. But I mean it for the best. However things are, I mean it for the best. I suppose I have a right to do as I like with my own? They'll find fault with me, no doubt, when I'm gone; but I mean it for the best."
His voice had dropped, and as he rambled on thus it seemed to Aldyth that he had forgotten where he was and that she was by his side. She had fancied him unchanged when first she saw him; but now it seemed to her that there was a change in him, though it was one not easy to define.
She laid her hand on his, and he looked round with a startled air, but recovering himself slowly, he said, "I don't know why I should talk about going. I am not so very old. Several of my ancestors lived to be ninety, and why should not I? I have always lived temperately. Why should not I see ninety, please God?"
"I trust you will, uncle," Aldyth said, gently; "but now, at what time does your train leave for Woodham?"
"Eh? The time; half-past six, to be sure. What's the time now? Oh, I don't trust any of your London clocks." And he pulled out the huge gold repeater familiar to Aldyth from her childhood. "Ah, I must leave you, child. I am glad we met. When are you coming to Woodham again? You do not look so well as when you left us. Tell me, are you happy with your mother and sisters? Do they treat you properly?"
"Yes, indeed they are very kind to me; I have nothing to complain of," Aldyth said, but nevertheless there was a yearning in her heart for Woodham and its peaceful, pleasant ways.
"Well, if they do treat you badly, you know where to come," her uncle said.
As they walked through the Park to the nearest entrance, many a passer-by looked curiously at the quaint old squire and the tall, graceful girl by his side, whilst he on his part bestowed a fierce scrutiny and more or less unflattering comments on every person or equipage that met his gaze. When Aldyth had seen her uncle into a cab for Liverpool Street, she hurried homewards, and reached the house barely in time to change her dress and appear at the dinner-table as usual.
Her mind was full of her uncle during the evening, and she found it difficult to avoid mentioning him.
A few days later, Aldyth received a second letter from Hilda, the contents of which gave her both surprise and pleasure.