Charlotte jumped up and clapped her hands. In her state of suppressed excitement one mood rapidly followed another, and it was better to laugh than to cry! But Jerry did not join in her merriment.
“Don’t, Charlotte,” he said, “I’m not joking. I’ve thought of him lately in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, and I have felt so sorry for him. So sorry that if I had heard him again I would have spoken to him, I am sure. Can you fancy anything more terrible than to have to wander about,—never resting, with no home, and no power of doing any good, or undoing any harm,—for years and years and years? I think it’s quite as dreadful a punishment as any one could imagine, and I think, perhaps, if people believed in that kind of ghosts a little, it wouldn’t do them any harm.”
“But, supposing it’s true even,” said Charlotte, “the poor old thing’s at rest now.”
“Yes, I think so; I do hope he’ll be able to be at peace. For, after all, he has tried to tell how sorry he was, and to put things right,” said Jerry, with a sigh of relief.
He was weak and tired all that day, but it was scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered at. And the night following he slept soundly, and awoke refreshed; and when Dr Lewis saw him he expressed his conviction that the boy would be quite able to stand the journey in a week’s time. And it was with one anxiety the less on his overburdened professional shoulders that the good doctor left the Waldrons’ house that morning.
“It will save the boy, there is no doubt of it,” he said to himself. “And I know no one more deserving of good fortune than Waldron,” for Jerry’s father had thought it right to take his old friend to some extent into his confidence. “Dear me!—to think that he should be the next in the Silverthorns succession! I knew there was some connection, but I thought it a much more remote one.”
Surprises seemed to be the order of the day at Norfolk Terrace. Some day within the week, during which, preparations for Jerry’s journey went on busily, came a letter with a foreign post-mark, addressed to Charlotte. She started a little when she saw the writing.
“From Claudia Meredon,” she half whispered to herself; “she must be writing about Jerry, I suppose.”
But when she drew out the letter she saw that it was rather a long one. “The boys” were all about, and Charlotte knew that quiet was not to be expected in such circumstances. So she took the letter off to her own room to read in peace. The first few words surprised her.
“My dear Charlotte,” it began,—whereas hitherto Claudia’s one or two little notes had been formally addressed to “Dear Miss Waldron,”—“Aunt Mildred tells me I may call you by your first name as she says we must each think of the other as a sort of cousin now, so I hope you will not mind it. I have been longing to tell you how happy I was to hear all that has come to pass. It is, of course, very sad for General Osbert and his family, but they have never really seemed like relations to Aunt Mildred, and I do not think they have ever cared much about dear Silverthorns. It is delightful to think that it is going to be your father’s some day, and indeed it will seem like his almost at once, as Aunt Mildred is longing for him to take charge of things. I do so want to see you. I want to explain to you many things that I have never been able to tell. I know you must have thought me strange and unfriendly, and I want you to know how difficult it was. Aunt Mildred will not mind my telling you everything now. She wants us to be friends, and this brings me to what I want especially to write about.”