"Oh!" she cried, on hearing her visitors' errand, "how glad I am! Yes—" as Mrs. Mead produced the brooch and handed it to her—"that is it! Oh, how delighted my father will be! It was my mother's—I lost my mother when I was a baby—and father gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday. Please sit down, both of you!"
She had risen at their entrance, but now took her chair again, whilst Bob and his aunt seated themselves side by side on a sofa. Bob, to his great surprise, had recognised Lady Margaret Browning as the young lady who had smiled at him so sweetly outside the soldier's hospital when he had been so proud to say that his father was a soldier. And she was a great lady—an earl's daughter!
"Surely I have seen you before?" she said, looking at him earnestly.
"Yes, miss," answered Bob, blushing.
"Say 'my lady,' Bob," whispered his aunt hastily.
"Oh, never mind!" said Lady Margaret. Then a flash of recognition crossed her face. "Ah, I remember you now," she cried, "and the way you spoke of your father! Is he at one of the fronts?"
"Yes, my lady," Bob replied; "in France."
Lady Margaret looked very interested. She was evidently going to ask Bob more questions about his father, but before she could do so Mrs. Mead interrupted the conversation to explain that she was making a home for her two motherless nephews during her brother's absence.
"Poor little fellows!" Lady Margaret said softly. Then she asked Bob his name and his age. "He looks pale and thin," she remarked to Mrs. Mead after the boy had answered her.
"He grows so fast—that's the reason," Mrs. Mead replied, adding, "And he works hard at school."