"How long have you been in London?"
"I have been here but a fortnight; I ran down home to see if I had relatives living, but found that an old lady was the sole survivor of my family. I need scarcely say that my first business on reaching London was to rig myself out in a presentable sort of way, and I may say that at present I feel very uncomfortable in these garments after being twenty years without putting on a black coat. I happened the other day to see your name among those who attended the levée, and I said to myself at once, 'I will call upon the General and see if he has any remembrances of me.'"
At this moment a servant entered the room with a little note.
"My Dear Uncle: It is very naughty of you to be so long. I am taking the carriage, and have told them to put the other horse into the brougham and bring it round for you at once."
For more than an hour the two men sat talking together, and Simcoe, on leaving, accepted a cordial invitation from the General to dinner on the following day.
"Well, uncle, who was it?" Hilda asked, when they met in the drawing room a few minutes before the dinner hour. "You said you would not be five minutes, and I waited for a quarter of an hour and then lost patience. I asked when I came in how long he had stayed, and heard that he did not leave until five o'clock."
"He was a man who had saved my life in India, child."
"Dear me! And have you never heard of him since, uncle?"
"No, dear. I did my best to find out his family, but had no idea of ever seeing the man himself, for the simple reason that I believed that he died twenty years ago. He had sailed in a vessel that was reported as lost with all hands, so you may well imagine my surprise when he told me who he was."