"But still I don't understand," said Ralph, looking puzzled. "Did my uncle buy it?"
"No, no. Did you never hear of old Alderwood Grange?"
"Alderwood," said Ralph. "Of course, but we never speak of it as 'The Grange,' you know, and I have never seen it. It has always been let since I can remember. I never even heard it described. Papa does not seem to care to speak of it."
"No, dear," said aunty. "The happiest part of his life began there, and you know how all the light seemed to go out of his life when your mother died. It was there he—Captain's master—got to know her, the 'Mary' of my little adventure. You understand it all now? He was a great deal in the neighbourhood—at the little town I called East Hornham—the summer we first came to Alderwood. And there they were married; and there, in the peaceful old church-yard, your dear mother is buried."
The children listened with sobered little faces. "Poor papa!" they said.
"But some day," said grandmother, "some day I hope, when you three are older, that Alderwood will again be a happy home for your father. It is what your mother would have wished, I know."
"Well then, you and aunty must come to live with us there. You must. Promise now, grandmother dear," said Molly.
Grandmother smiled, but shook her head gently.
"Grandmother will be a very old woman by then, my darling," she said, "and perhaps——"
Molly pressed her little fat hand over grandmother's mouth.