(The one excuse for the act of personation—if excuse there could be—lay in the affirmative answer to those questions. It would be something, surely, to say of the false Grace that the true Grace could not have been worthier of her welcome, if the true Grace had been received at Mablethorpe House!)
Lady Janet was partly touched, partly amused, by the extraordinary earnestness of the appeal that had been made to her.
“Have you behaved well?” she repeated. “My dear, you talk as if you were a child!” She laid her hand caressingly on Mercy’s arm, and continued, in a graver tone: “It is hardly too much to say, Grace, that I bless the day when you first came to me. I do believe I could be hardly fonder of you if you were my own daughter.”
Mercy suddenly turned her head aside, so as to hide her face. Lady Janet, still touching her arm, felt it tremble. “What is the matter with you?” she asked, in her abrupt, downright manner.
“I am only very grateful to your ladyship—that is all.” The words were spoken faintly, in broken tones. The face was still averted from Lady Janet’s view. “What have I said to provoke this?” wondered the old lady. “Is she in the melting mood to-day? If she is, now is the time to say a word for Horace!” Keeping that excellent object in view, Lady Janet approached the delicate topic with all needful caution at starting.
“We have got on so well together,” she resumed, “that it will not be easy for either of us to feel reconciled to a change in our lives. At my age, it will fall hardest on me. What shall I do, Grace, when the day comes for parting with my adopted daughter?”
Mercy started, and showed her face again. The traces of tears were in her eyes. “Why should I leave you?” she asked, in a tone of alarm.
“Surely you know!” exclaimed Lady Janet.
“Indeed I don’t. Tell me why.”
“Ask Horace to tell you.”