"It took me here, miss," said Mitty, passing her hand over her waistband. "And me in my cap and everything. I was all in a tremble. I felt I could not go. But he just took me by the hand, and there we was, miss, us three on the steps, and all the servants agathered round behind, and a crowd such as never was in front. They trod down all the flower-beds to nothing. Eh dear! when we come out, you should have heard 'em cheer, and when they seed me by him, I heard 'em saying, 'Who's yon?' And they said, 'That's the old nuss as reared him from a babby,' and they shouted till they was fit to crack, and called out, 'Three cheers for the old nuss.' And Master John, he kept smilin' at me, and I could do nothin' but roar, and there was Mrs. Alcock, I could hear her crying behind, and Parker cried too, and he's not a man to show, isn't Parker. But we'd known 'im, miss, since he was born, and there was no one else there that did; only me and Parker, and Mrs. Alcock, and Charles, as had been footman in the family, and come down special from London at Master John's expense. And such a speech as my precious lamb did make before them all, saying it was a day he should remember all his life. Those were his very words. Eh! it was beautiful. And all the presents as the deputations brought, one after another, and the cannon fired off fit to break all the glass in the winders. And then in the evening a hox roasted whole in the courtyard, and a bonfire such as never was on Moat Hill. And when it got dark, you could see the bonfires burning at Carley and Gilling, and Wet Waste, and right away to Kenstone, all where his land is, bless him. Eh! dear me, Miss Tempest, why was not some of you there?"
"John!" said Di half an hour later, as he was showing her some miniatures in the ebony cabinet in the picture-gallery, which Cardinal Wolsey had given the Tempest of his day, "why were not some of us, Archie or father, at your coming of age?"
They were sitting in the deep window-seat, with the miniatures spread out between them.
"There was no question about their coming," said John. "Archie was going in for his examination for the army that week, and your father would not have come if he had been asked. I did invite our great-uncle, General Hugh, but he was ill. He died soon afterwards. There was no one else to ask. You and your father, and Archie and I are the only Tempests there are."
The miniatures were covered with dust. John's and Di's pocket-handkerchiefs had an interest in common, which gradually obliterated all difference between them.
"Why would not father have come if you had asked him?" said Di presently. "You are friends, aren't you?"
"I suppose we are," said John, "if by friends one only means that we are not enemies. But there is nothing more than civility between us. You seem wonderfully well up in ancient family history, Di. Don't you know the story of the last generation?"
"No," said Di. "I don't know anything for certain. Granny hardly ever mentions my mother even now. I know she is barely on speaking terms with father. I hardly ever see him. When she took me, it was on condition that father should have no claim on me."
"You did not know, then," said John slowly, "that your mother was engaged to my father at the very time that she ran away with his own brother, Colonel Tempest?"
Di shook her head. She coloured painfully. John looked at her in silence, and then pulled out another drawer.