With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

The house and its wonders were explored, and, much as she was delighted with these, the gardens and park were an even greater excitement and pleasure. Dancing, chattering, asking questions of one or the other, she was half wild with pleasure, and the squire was no less delighted. A new light and joy had come into his life, and with it the ten years, which sorrow and regret had laid upon him, had fallen off; for, although his habits of seclusion and quiet had caused him to be regarded as quite an old man by his neighbours, he was still three years short of sixty, while the sergeant was two years younger.

It was a happy morning for them, all three; and when John Petersham went in, after lunch, to the kitchen, he assured his fellow servants that it was as much as he could do to keep from crying with joy, at the sight of the squire's happy face, and to hear him laugh and joke, as he had not done for eight years now.

The sergeant had stopped to that meal, for he saw, by the manner in which the squire asked him, that he should give pain if he refused; and there was a simple dignity about the old soldier, which would have prevented his appearing out of place at the table of the highest in the land.

"Now, pussy," the squire said, when they had finished, "you must amuse yourself for a bit. You can go in the garden again, or sit with Mrs. Morcombe in her room. She will look you out some picture books from the library. I am afraid there is nothing very suited to your reading, but we will soon put all that right. Your grandfather and I want to have another quiet chat together."

"Now I want your advice," he said when they were both comfortably seated in the study. "You see, you have been thinking and planning about the child for years, while it has all come new upon me, so I must rely upon you entirely. Of course, the child must have a governess, that is the first thing; not so much for the sake of teaching her, though, of course, she must be taught, but as a companion for her."

"Yes," the sergeant assented, "she must have a governess."

"It will be a troublesome matter to find one to suit," the squire said thoughtfully. "I don't want a harsh sort of Gorgon, to repress her spirits and bother her life out with rules and regulations; and I won't have a giddy young thing, because I should like to have the child with me at breakfast and lunch, and I don't want a fly-away young woman who will expect all sorts of attention. Now, what is your idea? I have no doubt you have, pictured in your mind, the exact sort of woman you would like to have over her."

"I have," the sergeant answered quietly. "I don't know whether it would suit you, squire, or whether it could be managed; but it does seem, to me, that you have got the very woman close at hand. Aggie has been for two years with Mrs. Walsham, who is a lady in every way. She is very fond of the child, and the child is very fond of her. Everyone says she is an excellent teacher. She would be the very woman to take charge of her."

"The very thing!" the squire exclaimed, with great satisfaction. "But she has a school," he went on, his face falling a little, "and there is a son."

"I have thought of that," the sergeant said. "The school enables them to live, but it cannot do much more, so that I should think she would feel no reluctance at giving that up."