"Oh!" said Hildegarde civilly. "But to go back for a moment, Miss Loftus. Your speaking of the children reminds me to ask you, is little Hugh going with you to Long Branch?"
Miss Loftus coloured. "Oh, dear, no!" she replied. "A child at such places, you know, is out of the question. He is to be sent to school. He is going next week."
"But—pardon me! are not all schools in vacation now?"
"I believe so! But these people—the Miss Hardhacks—are willing to take him now, and keep him."
"Poor little lad!" murmured Hildegarde, regardless of the fact that it was none of her business. "Will he not be very lonely?"
"Beggars must not be choosers, Miss Grahame!" was the reply, with another unamiable smile. Miss Loftus really would not have smiled at all, if she had known how she looked.
No sooner was the visitor gone, than Hildegarde flew up to her mother with the news. The Loftuses were going away; they were going to send Hugh to school. What was to be done? He could not go! He should not go.
She was greatly excited, but Mrs. Grahame's quiet voice and words restored her composure. "'Can't' and 'shan't' never won a battle!" said that lady. "We must think and plan."
Hildegarde had lately discovered, beyond peradventure, from some chance words let fall by little Hugh, that his mother had been the sister of Mr. Loftus; and she felt no doubt in her own mind that good Mrs. Beadle was aunt to both. The sister had been a school teacher, had married a man of some education, who died during the second year of their marriage, leaving her alone, in a Western town, with her little baby. She had struggled on, not wishing to be a burden either on her rich brother (who had not approved her marriage) or her aunt, who had nothing but her savings and her comfortable berth at Roseholme. At length, consumption laying its deadly hand on her, she sent for her brother, and begged him to take the boy to their good aunt, who, she knew, would care for him as her own. "But he didn't!" said Hugh. "He did not do that. He said he would make a man of me, but I don't believe he could make a very good one, do you, Beloved?"
Now the question was, how to bring about a meeting between the boy and his great-aunt, if great-aunt she were.