Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: “Am I to stay?”
“Perhaps you had better take to Richard’s room at once,” he pursued. “You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and will feel more at home.”
Lucy’s colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who should say, “The day is ours!” Undoubtedly—strange as it was to think it—the fortress was carried.
“Lucy is rather tired,” said Austin, and to hear her Christian name thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes.
The baronet was about to touch the bell. “But have you come alone?” he asked.
At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to require effort for her to move, and when she was within the region of the lamp, her agitation could not escape notice. The blissful bundle shook in her arms.
“By the way, what is he to me?” Austin inquired generally as he went and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. “My relationship is not so defined as yours, sir.”
An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his grandson with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to compliment the mother of anybody’s child.
“I really think he’s like Richard,” Austin laughed. Lucy looked: I am sure he is!
“As like as one to one,” Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. “And he’s as healthy as his father was, Sir Austin—spite o’ the might ’a beens. Reg’lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he come. We knows the hour o’ the day, and of the night.”