“Yes,” he returned, “and for that reason I shall be very glad if it turns out that there is a good deal of it.”
“We will make enquiries for you, Ethel,” said her Uncle George, “and set about it at once. So you need give yourself no farther trouble, my dear.”
“Thank you both very much, indeed, uncles,” was her reply in a tone full of grateful affection. “I think, though, that I will write a letter to my grandparents to say how dearly I love them, and how I have longed ever since dear mamma and papa died to be with them in the sweet old home I can just remember, but did not write till now because of not knowing their address. Shall I not do so?”
“I do not believe they are living, child,” replied her Uncle George. “Had they been, you surely would have heard from them in some way before this.”
“But they have not known where we were,” she returned, tears starting to her eyes again. “So I think I had better write.”
“Yes, do so if you wish. It cannot do any harm,” said her uncle Albert.
Blanche and Nannette eagerly awaited the return of their brother and sister, and on their coming besieged them with questions, asking what their uncles thought and said, and what was going to be done to find “Grandpa and Grandma Eyre.” Neither Ethel nor Harry was disposed to keep anything back, but the others were disappointed that there was so little to tell, and were almost indignant that it should be thought that their grandparents were dead. They urged Ethel to write at once and find out certainly whether they were or not.
“It is just what I intend doing,” she said, “and now, if you will be quiet, I will set to work at once. I’ll make my letter short, promising to write again as soon as we hear from them.”
The letter was written, read to the others for their approval, and mailed by Harry before they went to bed that night.
Some weeks of anxious suspense followed, then news was received of the death, some years before, of both Mr. and Mrs. Eyre. They had left property which, their daughter’s children heired, but only a part of it was recovered for them.