“I am glad the new poultry-yard is complete,” here half-sobbed Miss Katharine, “and that valuable new breed of birds arrived yesterday; and I – I – ”
“Try to stop talking, both of you,” suddenly exclaimed the squire. “I am dying, and Avonsyde is without an heir. Griselda, will you oblige me by going down to the library and bringing up out of the book-case marked D that old diary of my great-grandfather’s, in which are entered the particulars of the quarrel?”
Miss Katharine looked in an awe-struck and startled way at her sister. Miss Griselda rose at once and, with a bunch of keys in her hand, went downstairs.
The moment she had left the room Miss Katharine got up timidly and, with a certain pathos, stooped down and kissed the old man’s swollen hand.
The little action was done so simply and naturally that the fierce old face relaxed, and for an instant the wrinkled hand touched Miss Katharine’s gray head.
“Yes, Kitty, I know you love me; but I hate the feminine weakness of tears. Ah, Kitty, you were a fair enough looking maid once, but time has faded and changed you; you are younger than Grizel, but you have worn far worse.”
Miss Katharine did not say a word, but hastily resumed her seat; and when Miss Lovel returned with the vellum-bound diary, she had not an idea that her younger sister had ever moved.
Sitting down by her father, she opened the musty old volume and read aloud certain passages which, written in fierce heat at the time, disclosed a painful family scene. Angry words, bitter recriminations, the sense of injustice on one side, the thirst for revenge on the other, were faithfully portrayed by the dead-and-gone chronicler.
The squire’s lips moved in unspoken accompaniment to the words which his daughter read aloud, and Miss Katharine bent eagerly forward in order not to lose a syllable.
“I am dying, and there is no male heir to Avonsyde,” said the squire at last. “Griselda and Katharine, I wish to state here distinctly that my great-great-grandfather made a mistake when he turned the boy Rupert from the old place. Valentine should have refused to inherit; it is doubtless because of Valentine’s weakness and his father’s spirit of revenge that I die to-day without male issue to inherit Avonsyde.”
“Heaping recriminations on the dead won’t help matters now,” said Miss Griselda in a sententious voice. As she spoke she closed the diary, clasped it and locked it, and Miss Katharine, starting to her feet, said:
“There are the children in London, your grandchildren, father, and our nearest of kin.”
The squire favored his younger daughter with a withering look, and even Miss Griselda started at what were very bold words.
“Those children,” said the squire – “girls, both of them, sickly, weakly, with Valentine’s miserable pink-and-white delicacy and their low born mother’s vulgarity; I said I would never see them, and I surely do not wish to hear about them now. Griselda, there is now one plain and manifest duty before you – I lay it as my dying charge on you and Katharine. I leave the search which you are to institute as your mission in life. While you both live Avonsyde is yours, but you must search the world over if necessary for Rupert Lovel’s descendants; and when you discover them you are to elect a bonny stalwart boy of the house as your heir. No matter whether he is eldest or youngest, whether he is in a high position or a low position in the social scale, provided he is a lineal descendant of the Rupert Lovel who was disinherited in 1684, and provided also he is strong and upright and well-featured, with muscle and backbone and manliness in him, you are to appoint him your heir, and you are to bequeath to him the old house, and the old lands, and all the money you can save by simple and abstemious living. I have written it down in my will, and you are tied firmly, both of you, and cannot depart from my instructions; but I wished to talk over matters with you, for Katharine there is slow to take in a thing, and you, Grizel, are prejudiced and rancorous in your temper, and I wish you both clearly to understand that the law binds you to search for my heir, and this, if you want to inherit a shilling from me during your lifetime, you must do. Remember, however, and bear ever strongly in mind, that if, when you find the family, the elder son is weakly and the younger son is strong, it is to the sturdy boy that the property is to go; and hark you yet again, Griselda and Katharine, that the property is not to go to the father if he is alive, but to the young boy, and the boy is to be educated to take up his rightful position. A strong lad, a manly and stalwart lad, mind you; for Avonsyde has almost ceased to exist, owing to sickly and effeminate heirs, since the time when my great-great-grandfather quarreled with his son, Rupert Lovel, and gave the old place to that weakly stripling Valentine. I am a descendant of Valentine myself, but, ’pon my word, I rue the day.”
“Your directions shall be obeyed to the letter,” said Miss Griselda; but Miss Katharine interrupted her.
“And we – we have only a life-interest in the property, father?” she inquired in a quavering voice.
The old squire looked up into his younger daughter’s face and laughed.
“Why, what more would you want, Kitty? No longer young nor fair and with no thought of marrying – what is money to you after your death?”
“I was thinking of the orphan children in London,” continued Miss Katharine, with increasing firmness of manner and increasing trembling of voice. “They are very poor, and – and – they are Valentine’s children, and – and – you have never seen them, father.”
“And never mean to,” snapped the squire. “Griselda, I believe I have now given implicit directions. Katharine, don’t be silly. I don’t mean to see those children and I won’t be worried about them.”
At this moment the door behind the squire, which was very thick and made of solid oak, worn nearly black with age, was opened softly, and a clear voice exclaimed:
“Why, what a funny room! Do come in, Kitty. Oh, what a beautiful room, and what a funny, queer old man!”
Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine both turned round abruptly. Miss Griselda made a step toward the door to shut it against some unexpected and unwelcome intruder. The old man muttered:
“That is a child’s voice – one of the village urchins, no doubt.”
But before Miss Griselda could reach the door – in short, before any of the little party assembled in the dying squire’s bedroom could do anything but utter disjointed exclamations, a child, holding a younger child by the hand, marched boldly and with the air of one perfectly at home into the chamber.
“What a very nice room, and what funny ladies, and oh! what a queer, cross old man! Don’t be frightened, Kitty, we’ll walk right through. There’s a door at the other end – maybe we’ll find grandfather in the room beyond the door at that end.”
The squire’s lower jaw quite dropped as the radiant little creatures came in and filled the room with an unlooked-for light and beauty. They were dressed picturesquely, and no one for an instant could mistake them for the village children. The eldest child might have been seven; she was tall and broad, with large limbs, a head crowned with a great wealth of tangly, fuzzy, nut-brown hair, eyes deeply set, very dark in color, a richly tinted dark little face, and an expression of animation which showed in the dancing eyes, in the dancing limbs, in the smiling, dimpled, confident mouth; her proud little head was well thrown back; her attitude was totally devoid of fear. The younger child was fair with a pink-and-white complexion, a quantity of golden, sunny hair, and eyes as blue as the sky; she could not have been more than four years old, and was round-limbed and dimpled like a baby.
“Who are you, my dears?” said Miss Katharine when she could speak. Miss Katharine was quite trembling, and she could not help smiling at the lovely little pair. Squire Lovel and Miss Grizel were still frowning, but Miss Katharine’s voice was very gentle.
“Who are you, my dear little children?” she repeated, gaining courage and letting an affectionate inflection steal into her voice.
“I’m Kitty,” said the younger child, putting her