“I came because I heard he was ill,” said Garde, who was more calm than might have been expected. “I didn’t know you were here. It was real good of you to come, dear aunty. I suppose you will scold me.”
“It was all a terrible thing,” said her aunt, “but John says he thinks Mr. Randolph meant to take away our charter anyway.”
“Oh, I am sure of it!” cried Garde, so glad to hear of a partisan. “If I hadn’t believed that, I don’t think I should ever have run away. Oh, thank you, so much, dear aunty! I am so glad. God bless Uncle John! I knew I was right!”
“But your uncle and all of us are very sad,” her aunt proceeded to add. “They don’t think we will have the charter through the summer. It is a terrible time, but they all say that Randolph must have been getting ready, or he couldn’t have done so much so quickly. It is a sad day for Massachusetts. But, there, run in and see David, do,—but, dearie, don’t be surprised if he doesn’t seem to know you.”
In the dining-room Garde and Prudence met, a moment later.
“Good morning, Garde,” said the cousin, without the slightest sign of emotion.
Garde kissed her, impulsively. “Oh, I am so glad to see you, dear!” she said. Indeed love had so wrought upon her that she felt she had never so cared for any one before as she did for all these dear ones now.
She hastened on to her grandfather, and Prudence was left there, looking where her cousin had gone and solemnly wishing she also might do something emotional and startling.
But a few hours only sufficed to reduce the spirit of wildness and youthful exhilaration which Garde had brought with her back from the road in the forest. To hear the old patriot raving, childishly, and crying and praying over the charter and over Garde as a baby, which was the way he seemed to remember his grandchild, was a thing that rent her heart and drove all joy from the life of care into which she came, in her mood of penitence and quiet.
The days slipped by and became weeks. Prudence returned to her father at once. Goodwife Soam remained to help Garde over the crisis, and then she too left the girl with the stricken old man, who had become a prattling child, on whom the word “Charter” acted like a shock to make him instantly insane against his daughter’s child.