The drive home to Woodcote was a very silent one. Miss Merivale and Rose were both absorbed in their own thoughts, and neither of them even dimly divined the thoughts of the other.

It had never entered Miss Merivale’s head that Rose, her pet and darling, her little nurse and helper, could be longing to live with Pauline in London; and how could Rose have guessed that her aunt’s thoughts were fixed on Rhoda Sampson, the girl Pauline had spoken of in such contemptuous terms? She supposed her aunt was asleep, she sat so still in the corner of the carriage with her eyes closed, and she took good care not to disturb her. She was glad to be free to dwell on the delightful visions Pauline had called up for her.

Miss Merivale roused herself as the carriage turned in at the gates of the drive. The March twilight had gathered thickly, and lights were shining from the windows of the low, irregular house. They could see them twinkling through the trees.

“I wonder if Tom is back from Guilford yet, Rosie. He will scold us for being late. Oh, how sweet and fresh the air is here! Don’t you pity those girls cooped up in that stuffy little flat? You must not promise to stay a week with them, Rosie. You would find two days quite long enough.”

Rose was saved from attempting to answer this by the carriage stopping before the wide porch. A short, fair-haired young man, with a pleasant face and merry blue eyes, was waiting to open the door.

“Auntie, you have no business to be out as late as this and an east wind blowing,” he said, in a playful scolding tone. “Rose, you should not have allowed it. But come in. There is a jolly fire in the dining-room, and tea is quite ready. Next time you go to London, I mean to go with you.”

The dining-room looked a picture of comfort, with the curtains drawn, and the table laid for tea. Miss Merivale never had late dinner except when she gave a dinner party. She liked the simple, old-fashioned ways she had been accustomed to in her youth. But the table was laid with dainty care; the swinging lamps shone upon shining silver that had been in the family for two hundred years, on an old Worcester tea-set that had been bought by Miss Merivale’s grandmother, on bowls of early spring flowers gathered by Rose that morning from the beautiful old garden at the back of the house. Everything in the room spoke of long years of quiet prosperity. As Miss Merivale took her accustomed seat at the tea-table and looked about her, and then at Tom sitting opposite her, all unwitting of the terrible blow that might be about to fall on him, she could scarcely keep back the sob that rose to her lips.

Tom met her glance without seeing the trouble in it, and he smiled cheerfully back at her.

“Well, how did the shopping get on?” he asked, “Did you remember the seeds, Rose?”

Rose gave him a guilty look. “Oh, Tom, I quite forgot. Did you want them?”

He looked vexed for a moment, but only for a moment. “It does not matter. I can write. I promised Jackson he should have them this week. Cousin Ann has a wonderful show of anemones this year, Aunt Lucy. The square bed in the back garden is brilliant with them. We must try them here again next year. I don’t intend to be satisfied till we have beaten Cousin Ann.”

“She says the soil here doesn’t suit anemones; they are fanciful flowers,” returned Miss Merivale. “Then you went to Broadhurst, Tom?”

“Yes, I just managed it. Old Mrs. Harding was there. She is failing very fast, poor old soul. Part of the time she thought I was Cousin James, Aunt Lucy. She wanted to know when I heard last from my sister Lydia.”

Miss Merivale put her cup down with a little clatter. Her hand had begun to tremble. “You are very much like James, Tom,” she said, glancing at the portrait that hung on the wainscoted wall just above him, “and you get more like him every day.”

It was the portrait of her only brother she was looking at. Tom and Rose were her cousin’s children, though they called her aunt. She had adopted them when Rose was a baby and Tom a sturdy lad of five. Woodcote had been their home ever since. Tom had grown up knowing that the estate was to be his at Miss Merivale’s death. James Merivale had died young, ten years before his father; and Lydia, Miss Merivale’s only sister, had married against her father’s wishes, and had been disowned by him. After vainly trying to gain his forgiveness, she and her husband emigrated to Australia, and for some years nothing was heard of them. Then Lydia wrote to her father, telling him that she was a widow, and begging him to send her money that she might come home. The stern old man burnt the letter without answering it and without showing it to his daughter Lucy, and the next news came in a letter written by Lydia to her sister.

She had married again, her husband’s partner, James Sampson, and had a little daughter, whom she had named Rhoda, after her mother. The letter asked for money, and Miss Merivale sent what she could, though she had little to send, for her father demanded a strict account of all she spent.

She gave him the letter to read, and he returned it to her without a word; but his heart must have relented towards his disobedient daughter at the last, for by a codicil to his will it was provided that at Miss Merivale’s death Woodcote was to pass to Lydia, or, in the event of her not surviving her sister, to her daughter Rhoda.

But poor Lydia never knew that her father had forgiven her. She died three days before him; and when her sister’s letter reached Australia, James Sampson had broken up his home in Melbourne and started with his little daughter for a distant settlement. He never reached the settlement, and all Miss Merivale’s efforts to trace him proved fruitless. She at last accepted the belief of the lawyers that he had lost his way, and, like so many other hapless wanderers, had perished in the bush.

When Tom had become dear as a son to her, fears would sometimes rise that his claim to Woodcote might one day be disputed; but as the quiet years went on these fears ceased to present themselves, and when Pauline mentioned Rhoda Sampson the name had gone through her like a knife. She tried—she had been trying ever since—to tell herself that it was impossible it could be James Sampson’s child, but the terror had laid fast hold of her, and she could not shake it off. It was as James Sampson’s child she had always thought of her niece. Her heart had refused to give her the place Lydia’s little girl had a right to claim. She could not think of her as Lydia’s.

Tom had not noticed his aunt’s agitation at the mention of her sister’s name. He went on speaking of his visit to Broadhurst.

“They want you to spend a day or two there next week, Rosie. Mr. Powell has asked Laura to sing at the concert, and she wants to practise with you.”

Rose’s pretty face clouded over. “But I am going to stay with Pauline next week. And I wish people wouldn’t ask Laura to sing in public. She can’t sing.”

“It’s a pleasure to listen to her, though,” returned Tom sturdily. “We aren’t all as critical as you, Rosie; and our Parish Room isn’t the Albert Hall. You had much better go to Broadhurst than to Chelsea. Miss Smythe and Miss Desborough live in two cupboards up among the clouds, don’t they?”

“It isn’t quite as bad as that, my dear,” broke in Miss Merivale, as she saw Rose’s vexed expression. “I promised that Rose should stay with them for a day or two. I thought that if you went up to Joachim’s concert you might leave Rose behind, and fetch her next day.”

“But, Aunt Lucy, Pauline said a week!” exclaimed Rose in dismay. “We could do nothing in a day. And we want to do so much. Time always flies so fast in London. One lives there.”

“We only vegetate here, eh, Rosie?” said Tom in a tone of good-humoured banter. “Was Wordsworth a vegetable too? He lived in the country, you know.”

But Rose refused to answer this. “Aunt Lucy, I may stay longer than a day, may I not?”

“Yes, dear, of course. Don’t mind Tom’s teasing. I must go up to town again to-morrow, I find, and I will call at Cadogan Mansions and see Miss Smythe for you. And I can get your seeds, Tom.”

Both Rose and Tom stared in surprise at this. “Aunt Lucy, you will tire yourself out if you go off shopping again to-morrow,” exclaimed Tom. “Can’t I go for you?”

“No; I must go, my dear. I shall go by train, I think. You shall drive me to the station, and I can take a hansom at Victoria. No, you must not come with me, Tom. I want to see Mr. Thomson.”

“You won’t be able to find your way to Lincoln’s Inn by yourself,” said Tom teasingly. “We can’t let her go alone, can we, Rose?”

“Don’t be such foolish children,” returned Miss Merivale, getting up from the table. “I have a matter of business to talk over with Mr. Thomson, Tom. And I would rather go alone, please.”

She spoke with such unwonted decision Tom could say no more. But he was both hurt and surprised. Miss Merivale was accustomed to ask his opinion on every business matter. He practically managed the estate for her. It seemed very strange to him that she should be so bent on going to see Mr. Thomson alone. He felt as if he must have proved himself in some way unworthy of her confidence.

Miss Merivale saw that he was hurt, though he tried his best to hide it. But it was impossible for her to explain. She had determined to be silent till she had seen Rhoda Sampson and found out who she was.

Rose was as much surprised as Tom at her aunt’s determination to go alone to London next day. She talked of it to Tom in the drawing-room when Miss Merivale had gone up to her room.

“You don’t think it is about her will, do you?” she said, in a hushed tone.

Tom gave her a look of strong disgust. “I don’t think anything about it. But she isn’t fit to go by herself. Get her to take Maitland, if she won’t take one of us. She was looking quite ill this evening, didn’t you notice? I wouldn’t stay away a week, Rosie, if I were you. She misses you dreadfully if you are away only a day.”

“But it is so dull here, doing nothing day after day but wait on Aunt Lucy, and pick the flowers, and look after the old people in the village,” said Rose, moved to a sudden burst of confidence. “It’s different for you, Tom. You have your shooting and fishing, and the estate to look after, and all the rest of it. But I’m at home all day”—

“That’s where a girl ought to be, my dear,” returned Tom good-humouredly. “I’m not going to pity you. If you are dull, it’s your own fault. Laura isn’t dull.”

“I don’t suppose an oyster is dull,” was Rose’s disdainful retort. “But it’s no good to talk to you, Tom.”

“I don’t say Laura is as clever as you, my dear,” returned Tom, with undiminished good humour. “But it is no good grumbling about your lot. Aunt Lucy couldn’t do without you, and you wouldn’t leave her if you could. So what’s the use of talking? And as to your being dull, I don’t believe it. You only imagine you are. That’s where your cleverness comes in, you see. We stupid people aren’t ashamed to be contented.”

Rose could not help laughing at this, though she felt very cross. But she felt Tom was right in saying that her aunt could not do without her for very long. And she told herself sorrowfully that she must give up all hope of sharing Pauline’s flat when Clare went back to dull captivity at Desborough Park. She could not be spared. It seemed doubtful if she would be able to persuade her aunt and Tom to let her stay more than a day or two when she made her promised visit in the following week.

She went up to her aunt’s room to bid her good-night, feeling herself a martyr, but determined to bear her hard lot with decent cheerfulness.

Miss Merivale was sitting at the old bureau where she kept her most private papers. She had been reading over again the letter in which Lydia told her of the birth of her little dark-eyed girl.

Many tears had fallen on the yellow pages before she put them away, and she turned such a white, worn face to Rose as she entered, Rose felt horribly ashamed at having ever thought of sharing Pauline’s flat. And the good-night embrace she gave Miss Merivale before going into the little white room that opened from her aunt’s had compunction in it as well as warm affection.

“Aunt Lucy, do let Tom go with you to-morrow,” she begged. “But must you go to-morrow?”

“Yes, I must, dear. And I want to go alone,” Miss Merivale answered. Then she pinched Rose’s cheek, trying to speak playfully. “You silly children, am I not to be trusted to go anywhere alone? I shall start early, and get back early. It is business I cannot put off, Rose. Perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to tell you all about it.”