Richards and the general were at Grantley Hall and as busy as the traditional bonnet-maker. They had a little secret between them, for neither Jack nor Flora had yet been told of the change in the fortunes of the Grant Mackenzies. It would be such a delightful surprise. And so the two old friends worked away, as merrily as school-boys building a rabbit-hutch, and in a few weeks’ time the old place was put to rights, and every nick-nack and every curio and souvenir and picture replaced in the drawing-room, just as it had been in the dear, reckless days of long ago.
But near the finish of the arrangements MʻHearty was invited down and let into the delightful secret, for he it was who should bring Jack and his sister, with Tom, Gerty, and Mary the maid, down to the old place.
“Do you know,” said MʻHearty about a week after this, as he stood with Jack and his sister on the balcony of the priest’s drawing-room at Torquay, “I’m dying to see old Grantley Hall just once again.”
“And I too would like to see it,” sighed Jack, “if—if I thought Flora could stand it.”
“Oh I think I could.”
“The old dial-stone.”
Page [212].
“Well, the weather is delightful; why shouldn’t we sail round?”
“Agreed,” said Jack; “we shall.”