With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

The housekeeper soon entered, and Aggie, very sleepy after the excitements of the day, was taken off to bed. Her sleepiness, however, disappeared in her wonder at the size of the house, and at the vastness of her bedroom.

"Why, you have got a fire!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I never saw a fire in a bedroom, before."

"I didn't light it for the cold, miss," the housekeeper said; "but because it is a long time since the room was slept in before, and because I thought it would be cheerful for you. I shall sleep in the next room, till things are settled, so that, if you want anything, you will only have to run in."

"Thank you," Aggie said gratefully. "It does all seem so big; but I am sure not to want anything. Thank you."

"Here is your box, miss. Would you like me to help undress you?"

"Oh, no!" Aggie laughed. "Why, of course I can undress myself;" and she laughed at the idea of assistance being required in such a matter.

"Then, good night!" the housekeeper said. "I shall leave the door ajar, between the two rooms, when I come to bed."

The next morning, soon after breakfast, Sergeant Wilks was ushered into the study, where the squire was expecting him. The two men had had hard thoughts of each other, for many years. The squire regarded the sergeant as a man who had inveigled his son into marrying his daughter, while the sergeant regarded the squire as a heartless and unnatural father, who had left his son to die alone among strangers. The conversation with John Petersham had taught the sergeant that he had wronged the squire, by his estimate of him, and that he was to be pitied rather than blamed in the matter. The squire, on his part, was grateful to the sergeant for the care he had bestowed upon the child, and for restoring her to him, and was inclined, indeed, at the moment, to a universal goodwill to all men.

The sergeant was pale, but self possessed and quiet; while the squire, moved, by the events of the night before, out of the silent reserve in which he had, for years, enveloped himself, was agitated and nervous. He was the first to speak.

"Mr. Wilks," he said. "I have to give you my heartfelt thanks, for having restored my granddaughter to me--the more so as I know, from what she has said, how great a sacrifice you must be making. John has been telling me of his conversation with you, and you have learned, from him, that I was not so wholly heartless and unnatural a father as you must have thought me; deeply as I blame myself, and shall always blame myself, in the matter."