“My very dear cousin,” it read, “need I say with what deep sympathy I received the news of our dear Roger’s sudden call? At this great distance, blows of this kind fall with cruel heaviness, and I assure you I felt crushed as I realised that I should no more grasp the hand of one of the noblest men it has been my privilege to call by the name of friend. If my loss is so great, what must yours be? I dare not think of it! I was truly touched by our dear one’s thought of me in desiring that I should join you in the care of his orphaned boy. I regard this dying wish as a sacred trust put upon me, which gratitude and love alike require that I should accept. Ere this letter reaches you, I shall myself be nearing England. The provision our dear Roger has made has emboldened me to resign my commission, so that I may devote my whole time without distraction to my new charge. You know, dear cousin, the special bond of sympathy that unites us; your boy has been robbed of a parent; my children long since have had to mourn a mother. I cannot leave them here. They accompany me to England, where perhaps for all of us there awaits a community of comfort. I bespeak your motherly heart for them, as I promise you a father’s affection for your boy. I will write no more at present. The ‘Oriana’ is due in London, I believe, about February 20, and we shall, I need hardly assure you, not linger long before bringing in our own persons to Maxfield whatever sympathy four loving hearts can carry amongst them.
“With love to the dear boy, believe me, dear cousin, your loving and sympathising fellow-mourner,—
“Edward Oliphant.”
Mrs Ingleton, highly gratified, handed the beautiful letter first to her son, then to Mr Armstrong.
Roger was hardly as taken with it as his mother.
“Civil enough,” said he, “and I dare say he means all he says; but I don’t warm to the prospect of being cherished by him. Besides, there is something a trifle too neat in the way he invites his whole family to Maxfield. What do you think, Armstrong?”
Mr Armstrong was perusing the letter with knitted brows and a curl of his lips. He vouchsafed no reply until he had come to the end. Then he shook the glass ominously out of his eye and said—
“I’ll tell you that when I see him.”
Roger knew his tutor well enough to see that he did not like the letter at all, and he felt somewhat fortified in his own misgivings accordingly.
“I wonder what mother will do with them all?” said the boy. “Surely we aren’t to have the place turned into a nursery for two years.”