Gabrielle’s cheeks flushed brightly as she read.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, raising her eyes to the face of the tall man who stood near her, “do you really believe a little bit in it at last? Don’t you remember how I used to pray of you to tell me traditions of the old English home when I was a little child, and how often you have repeated that old rhyme to me, and don’t you know how mother used to treasure the tankard with the family crest and ‘Tyde what may’ in those queer, quaint English characters on it? Mother was quite excited when the first advertisement appeared, but you said we were not to talk or to think of it. Rupert is the rightful heir—is he not, father? Oh, how proud I shall be to think that the old place is to belong to him!”
“I believe he is the rightful heir, Gabrielle,” said her father in a grave voice. “He is undoubtedly a lineal descendant of the Rupert Lovel who left Avonsyde in 1684, and he also fulfills the conditions of the old ladies’ advertisement, for he is under fifteen and splendidly strong; but it is also a fact that I cannot find some very important letters which absolutely prove Rupert’s claim. I could swear that I left them in the old secretary in your mother’s room, but they have vanished. Davis, on the other hand, believes that I have given them to him, and will have a strict search instituted for them. The loss of the papers makes a flaw in my boy’s claim; but I shall not delay to go to England on that account. Davis will mail them to me as soon as ever they are recovered; and in the mean time, Gabrielle, I will ask you to pack up the old tankard and give it to me to take to England. There is no doubt whatever that that tankard is the identical one which my forefather took with him when almost empty-handed he left Avonsyde,”
“I will fetch it at once,” said Gabrielle. “Mother kept it in the cupboard at the back of her bed. She always kept the tankard and our baptismal mugs and the diamonds you gave her when first you were married in that cupboard. I will fetch the tankard and have it cleaned, and I will pack it for you myself.”
Gabrielle ran out of the room, returning in a few moments with a slightly battered old drinking-cup, much tarnished and of antique pattern.
“Here it is!” she exclaimed, “and Betty shall clean it. Is that you, Betty? Will you take this cup and polish it for me at once yourself? I have great news to give you when you come back.”
Betty took the cup and turned it round and round with a dubious air.
“It isn’t worth much,” she said; “but I’ll clean it anyhow.”
“Be careful of it, Betty,” called out Gabrielle. “Whatever you may think of it, you tiresome old woman, it is of great value to us, and particularly to your favorite, Rupert.”
Muttering to herself, Betty hobbled downstairs, and Gabrielle and her father continued their conversation. In about half an hour the old woman returned and presented the cup, burnished now to great brilliancy, to her young mistress.