“So it seems, Nancy; the fact seems to have taken complete possession of you. Were it not absolutely impossible, I could even have said that my poor honest old Nancy was the thief! There, Nancy, don’t look so startled. Of course I was only joking.”
“Of course, ma’am; but you’ll just excuse me if I go and bind up my burned hand.”
[CHAPTER XXIII.—FOREST LIFE.]
The spring came early that year. A rather severe winter gave place to charming and genial weather. In April it was hot, and the trees made haste to clothe themselves with their most delicate and fairy green, the flowers peeped out joyfully, the birds sang from morning till night, and the forest became paradise.
Rachel, Kitty, and Phil almost lived there. Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine had become lenient in the matter of lessons. Miss Griselda was wise enough to believe in nature’s lessons and to think fine fresh air the best tonic in all the world for both mind and body. Phil was in his element in the forest. He was always finding new beetles and fresh varieties of chrysalides, which he and Kitty carefully treasured; and as to the roots and the flowers and the mosses which these children collected, even good-natured Newbolt at last gave vent to strong expressions of disapproval, and asked if the whole of the house was to be turned topsy-turvy with their messes.
Phil could do what he liked in his old tower bedroom; his mother never interfered with him there. This quaint old room was Liberty Hall to Phil. Here he could groan if he wanted to, or sigh if he wanted to, or talk his secrets to the silent, faithful walls if he wanted to; and here he brought his spiders and his beetles and his mosses, and kept them in odd bottles and under broken glasses, and messed away to his heart’s content without any one saying him nay.
Downstairs Mrs. Lovel was a most careful and correct mother—never petting and never spoiling, always on her guard, always watchful and prim. Miss Griselda was wont to say that with all her follies she had never come across a more sagacious and sensible mother than Mrs. Lovel. As a mother she approved of her absolutely; but then Miss Griselda never saw behind the scenes; she never saw what went on in the tower bedroom, where Mrs. Lovel would take the boy in her arms, and strain him to her heart with passionate kisses, and pet him and make much of him, and consult him, and, above all things, faithfully promise him that after the 5th of May the burden which was crushing his young life should be removed, and he might be his own natural and unrestrained self again.
Mrs. Lovel had got a dreadful fright when she first read young Rupert’s letter; but when day after day and week after week passed and no tidings of Rupert or his father reached Avonsyde, she began to hope that even though they were in England, they had come over on business in no way connected with the old family home; in short, even though they were in England, they had not seen those advertisements which had almost turned her head.
The weeks passed quickly, and she began to breathe freely and to be almost happy once more. The loss of the tankard was certainly disquieting, but she felt sure that with the aid of the stolen letters she could substantiate her boy’s claim, and she also reflected that if the tankard was lost to her it was also lost to her brother-in-law, Rupert Lovel.
So life went quite smoothly at Avonsyde, and day after day the weather became more balmy and springlike, and day after day Miss Griselda’s face wore a softer and gentler expression; for the little heir-apparent was altogether after her own heart, and she was contented, as all women are when they find a worthy object to love.