“Your grandfather is waiting outside, James, with his niece. May they come in?”
It was a touching scene when Captain Bradshaw entered. He paused at the door, and looked wistfully at the pale figure in his quaint chair. Then he came forward and took the lad’s thin hand in his.
“My poor boy, my poor boy!” he said; “my Laura’s child. To think you should have been all these years so near to me, and that I should never have dreamt of your existence, James. I have to ask your pardon, it is too late to ask hers now, for the past. I would have atoned it to her, but I could not; let me atone it to you.”
“Poor grandfather!” the lad said; “it has been hard on you, too, all these years—harder than on me. You could not find a child again—I found another mother.”
“Yes, indeed,” the old man said, and turning to Mrs. Holl, who was standing by crying audibly, “You good woman. How can I thank you; what can I say to you in my dead child’s name and in my own? But Mrs. Holl, you and your husband will surely have your reward. You know the words, ‘I was naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and ye visited me; hungry, and ye took me in.’ God will bless you. No thanks I can give you can repay you as your own good conscience must do. I never can repay you, and yet, Mrs. Holl, in some way or other you shall find Harry Bradshaw is not ungrateful.”
“Don’t talk of it, sir,” Mrs. Holl sobbed. “Me and John only did our duty, and it was a real pleasure, too, for James has always been a happiness and a comfort to us. ’Cept as to his accident, he has never caused us a sore moment.”
“And now, Mrs. Holl, you will spare him to me?” the old man said. “You have, I hear, other children; she was my only one. My claim is as nothing to yours, but for his own sake you will let him go?”
“Lor, yes, sir, and glad to know he is with his own people, and well cared for. But you will let us come to see him sometimes?”
Mrs. Holl was soon assured upon this point, and Captain Bradshaw then turned again to his grandson, who, during this time, had been talking to Alice Heathcote or Prescott. The lad was pleased and happy with his new relations. As to Captain Bradshaw’s earnestness there could be no doubt, and the lad felt in looking up at Alice, and in listening to her quiet, gentle voice, that it would be indeed pleasant to live with people like these, who would understand his thoughts and feelings, as the kind friends around him could never have done. But he refused to assent to Captain Bradshaw’s proposition that the carriage should come to take him away. “No, grandfather,” he said, “I cannot go away and let father come home and find I have gone without a word; I must see him first. Please go home now, sir; I should like to think it all over, and to talk with mother here. In a few days I will come, but not now.”
In vain Captain Bradshaw—who greatly admired the thoughtful kindness of the lad’s decision—argued against it; in vain Mrs. Holl entreated him, with tears in her eyes, not to mind them, but to go with his new friends. The boy was firm, and Captain Bradshaw could not but respect his decision.