Kitabı oku: «The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VI. – THE TOWER BEDROOM
Avonsyde was a very old property. The fair lands had been bestowed by William Rufus on a certain Rupert Lovel who was fortunate enough to earn the gratitude of this most tyrannical and capricious of monarchs. Rupert Lovel had laid the first stone of the present house and had lived there until his death. He was succeeded by many wild and lawless descendants. As time went on they added to the old house, and gained, whether wrongly or rightly no one could say, more of the forest lands as their own. Avonsyde was a large property in the olden days, and the old squires ruled those under them by what was considered at that period the only safe and wholesome rule – that of terror. They were a proud, self-confident, headstrong race, very sure of one thing – that whatever happened Avonsyde would never cease to be theirs. An old prophecy was handed down from father to son to this effect. It had been put into a couplet by a rhymer as great in his way as Thomas of border celebrity:
“Tyde what may betyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.”
These words were taken as the motto of the house, and could be deciphered in very quaint lettering just over the arch which supported a certain portion of the tower. The tower was almost if not quite seven hundred years old, and was another source of great pride and interest to the family.
Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine could not have done little Philip Lovel a greater honor than when they arranged the tower bedroom for his reception. In their opinion, and in the opinion of every retainer of the family, they indeed showed respect to the child and the child’s claim when they got this gloomy apartment into order for him and his mother; but when Mrs. Lovel, a timid and nervous woman, saw the room, she scarcely appreciated the honor conferred upon her and hers.
Avonsyde was a house which represented many periods; each addition was a little more comfortable than its predecessor. For instance, the new wing, with the beautiful drawing-rooms and spacious library, was all that was luxurious; the cozy bedrooms where Rachel and Kitty slept, with their thick walls and mullioned windows and deep old-fashioned cupboards, were both cheerful and convenient; but in the days when the tower was built ladies did without many things which are now considered essential, and Mrs. Lovel had to confess to herself that she did not like her room. In the first place, the tower rooms were completely isolated from the rest of the house; they were entered by a door at one side of the broad hall; this door was of oak of immense thickness, and when it was shut no sound from the tower could possibly penetrate to the rest of the house. At the other side of the oak door was a winding stone staircase, very much worn and hollowed out by the steps of many generations. The stairs wound up and up in the fashion of a corkscrew; they had no rail and were very steep, and the person who ascended, if at all timid, was very glad to lay hold of a slack rope which was loosely run through iron rings at intervals in the wall.
After a great many of these steps had been climbed a very narrow stone landing was discovered; three or four steps had then to be gone down, and Mrs. Lovel found herself in an octagon-shaped room with a very low ceiling and very narrow windows. The furniture was not only old-fashioned, but shabby; the room was small; the bed was that monstrosity, a four-poster; the curtains of velvet were black and rusty with age and wear. In short, the one and only cheerful object which poor Mrs. Lovel found in the apartment was the little white bed in one corner which had been prepared for Philip’s reception.
“Dear, dear, what remarkably steep stairs; and what a small – I mean not a very large room! Are all the bedrooms of Avonsyde as small as this?” she continued, interrogating Newbolt, who, starched and prim, but with a comely fresh face, stood beside her.
“This is the tower bedroom, mem,” answered the servant in a thin voice. “The heir has always slept in this room, and the ladies has the two over. That has always been the fashion at Avonsyde – the heir has this room and the reigning ladies sleep overhead. This room is seven hundred years old, mem.”
Mrs. Lovel shivered.
“Very antiquated and interesting,” she began, “but isn’t it just a little cold and just a little gloomy? I thought the other part of the house so much more cheerful.”
Newbolt raised her eyebrows and gazed at Mrs. Lovel as if she were talking the rankest heresy.
“For them as don’t value the antique there’s rooms spacious and cheerful and abundantly furnished with modern vanities in the new part of the house,” she replied. “Miss Rachel and Miss Kitty, for instance; their bedroom isn’t built more than three hundred years – a big room enough and with a lot of sunlight, but terrible modern, and not to be made no ’count of at Avonsyde; and then there are two new bedrooms over the drawing-rooms, where we put strangers. Very large they are and quite flooded with sunlight; but of course for antiquity there are no rooms to be compared with this one and the two where the ladies sleep. I am sorry the room don’t take your fancy, mem. I suppose, not being of the blood of the family, you can’t appreciate it. Shall I speak to the ladies on the subject?”
“Oh! by no means, my good creature,” replied poor Mrs. Lovel in alarm. “The room of course is most interesting and wonderfully antiquated. I’ve never seen such a room. And do your ladies really sleep higher up than this? They must have wonderfully strong hearts to be able to mount any more of those steep – I mean curious stairs.”
Newbolt did not deign to make any comment with regard to the sound condition of Miss Griselda’s and Miss Katharine’s physical hearts. She favored the new-comer with a not-too-appreciative glance, and having arranged matters as comfortably as she could for her in the dismal chamber, left her to the peace and the solitude of a most solitary room.
The poor lady quite trembled when she found herself alone; the knowledge that the room was so old filled her with a kind of mysterious awe. After her experiences in the New World, she even considered the drawing-rooms at Avonsyde by no means to be despised on the score of youth. Those juvenile bedrooms of two hundred or three hundred years’ standing where Rachel and Kitty reposed were, in Mrs. Level’s opinion, hoary and weighted with age; but as to this tower-room, surely such an apartment should only be visited at noon on a sunny day and in the company of a large party!
“I’m glad the old ladies do sleep overhead,” she said to herself. “What truly awful attics theirs must be! I never saw such a terribly depressing room as this. I’m certain it is haunted; I’m convinced there must be a ghost here. If Philip were not sleeping here I should certainly die. Oh, dear! what a risk I am running for the sake of Philip. Much of this life would kill me! I find, too, that I am not very good at keeping in my feelings, and I’ll have to act – act all the time I am here, and pretend I’m just in raptures with everything, when I am not. That dreadful Newbolt saw through me about this room. Oh, dear! I am a bad actor. Well, at any rate I am a good mother to Philip; it’s a splendid chance for Philip. But if he speaks about that pain in his side we are lost! Poor Phil! these steep stairs are extremely bad for him.”
There was plenty of daylight at present, and Mrs. Lovel could move about her ancient chamber without any undue fear of being overtaken by the terrors of the night. She took off her traveling bonnet and mantle, arranged her hair afresh before a mirror which caused her to squint and distorted every feature, and finally, being quite certain that she could never lie down and rest alone on that bed, was about to descend the stone stairs and to return to the more cheerful part of the house, when gay, quick footsteps, accompanied by childish laughter, were heard ascending, and Philip, accompanied by Kitty, bounded without any ceremony into the apartment.
“Oh, mother, things are so delightful here,” began the little boy, “and Kitty fishes nearly as well as Rupert. And Kitty has got a pony and I’m to have one; Aunt Grizel says so – one of the forest ponies, mother. Do you know that the forest is full of ponies? and they are so rough and jolly. And there are squirrels in the forest – hundreds of squirrels – and all kinds of birds, and beetles and spiders, and ants and lizards! Mother, the forest is such a lovely place! Is this our bedroom, mother? What a jolly room! I say, wouldn’t Rupert like it just?”
“If you’re quick, Phil,” began Kitty – “if you’re very quick washing your hands and brushing your hair, we can go back through the armory – that’s the next oldest part to the tower. I steal into the armory sometimes in the dusk, for I do so hope some of the chain-armor will rattle. Do you believe in ghosts, Phil? I do and so does Rachel.”
“No, I’m not such a silly,” replied Phil. “Mother, dear, how white you are! Don’t you like our jolly, jolly bedroom? Oh! I do, and wouldn’t Rupert love to be here?”
Mrs. Lovel’s face had grown whiter and whiter.
“Phil,” she said, “I must speak to you alone. Kitty, your little cousin will meet you downstairs presently. Oh, Phil, my dear,” continued the poor lady when Kitty had succeeded in banging herself noisily and unwillingly out of the room – “Phil, why, why will you spoil everything?”
“Spoil everything, mother?”
“Yes; you have spoken of Rupert – you have spoken twice of Rupert. Oh, we had better go away again at once!”
“Dear Rupert!” said little Phil, with a sigh; “darling, brave Rupert! Mother, how I wish he was here!”
“You will spoil everything,” repeated the poor lady, wringing her hands in despair. “You know what Rupert is – so strong and manly and beautiful as a picture; and you know what the will says – that the strong one, whether he be eldest or youngest, shall be heir. Oh, Phil, if those old ladies know about Rupert we are lost!”
Phil had a most comical little face; a plain face decidedly – pale, with freckles, and a slightly upturned nose. To those who knew it well it had many charms. It was without doubt an expressive and speaking face; in the course of a few minutes it could look sad to pathos, or so brimful of mirth that to glance at it was to feel gay. The sad look now filled the beautiful brown eyes; the little mouth drooped; the boy went up and laid his head on his mother’s shoulder.
“Do you know,” he said, “I must say it, even though it hurts you. I want Rupert to have everything. I love Rupert very dearly, and I think it would be splendid for him to come here, and to own a lot of the wild ponies, and to fish in that funny little river which Kitty calls the Avon. Rupert would let me live with him perhaps, and maybe he’d give me a pony, and I could find squirrels and spiders and ants in the forest – oh! and caterpillars; I expect there are splendid specimens of caterpillars here. Mother, when my heart is full of Rupert how can I help speaking about him?”
Mrs. Lovel pressed her hand to her brow in a bewildered manner.
“We must go away then, Philip,” she said. “As you love Rupert so well, better even than your mother, we must go away. It was a pity you did not tell me something of this before now, for I have broken into my last – yes, my very last £20 to come here. We have not enough money to take us back to Australia and to Rupert; still, we must go away, for the old ladies will look upon us as impostors, and I could not bear that for anything in the world.”
“It is not only Rupert,” continued Phil; “it’s Gabrielle and Peggy; and – and – mother, I can’t help being fond of them; but, mother, I love you best!”
“Do you really, Phil? Better than that boy? I never could see anything in him. Do you love me better than Rupert, Phil?”
“Yes, of course; you are my mother, and when father died he said I was always to love you and to do what you wanted. If you want Avonsyde, I suppose you must have it some day when the old ladies die. I’ll do my best not to talk about Rupert, and I’ll try to seem very strong, and I’ll never, never tell about the pain in my side. Give me a kiss, mother. You shan’t starve nor be unhappy. Oh! what an age we have been chattering here, and Kitty is waiting for me, and I do so want to see the armory! I wonder if there are ghosts there? It sounds silly to believe in them; but Kitty does, and she’s a dear little girl, nearly as nice as Gabrielle. Good-by, mother; I’m off. I’ll try to remember.”
CHAPTER VII. – “BETYDE WHAT MAY.”
In a handsomely furnished dining-room in a spacious and modern-looking house about three miles outside the city of Melbourne, three children – two girls and a boy – were standing impatiently by a wide-open window.
“Gabrielle,” said the boy, “have you any idea when the mails from England are due?”
The boy was the taller of the three, splendidly made, with square shoulders, great breadth of chest, and head so set on the same shoulders that it gave to its young owner an almost regal appearance. The bright and bold dark eyes were full of fire; the expressive lines round the finely cut lips were both kindly and noble.
“Gabrielle, is that Carlo riding past on Jo-jo? If it is, perhaps he is bringing our letter-bag. Father has gone to Melbourne to-day; but he said if there were English letters he would send them out by Carlo.”
“You are so impatient about England and English things, Rupert,” said little Peggy, raising a face framed in by soft flaxen hair to her big brother. “Oh, yes, I’ll run to meet Carlo, for of course you want me to, and I’ll come back again if there’s any news; and if there is not, why, I’ll stay and play with my ravens, Elijah and James Grasper. Elijah is beginning to speak so well and James Grasper is improving. If Carlo has no letters you need not expect me back, either of you.”
The little maid stepped quickly out of the open window, and ran fleet as the wind across a beautifully kept lawn and in the direction where a horse’s quick steps were heard approaching.
Gabrielle was nearly as tall as her brother, with a stately bearing and a grave face.
“If father does decide on taking you to Europe, Rupert, I wish to say now that I am quite willing to stay here with Peggy. I don’t want to go to school at Melbourne. I would rather stay on here and housekeep, and keep things nice the way our mother would have liked. If Peggy and I go away, Belmont will have to be shut up and a great many of the servants dismissed, and that would be silly. I am thirteen now, and I think I am wise for my age. You will speak to father, won’t you, Rupert, and ask him to allow me to be mistress here while you are away.”
“If we are away,” corrected Rupert. “Ah! here comes Peggy, and the letter-bag, and doubtless a letter. What a good child you are, Peggy White!”
Peggy dashed the letter-bag with some force through the open window. Rupert caught it lightly in one hand, and detaching a small key from his watch-chain opened it. It only contained one letter, and this was directed to himself:
“Mr. Rupert Lovel,
“Belmont,
“Near Melbourne,
“Victoria,
“Australia.”
“A letter from England!” said Rupert. “And oh! Gabrielle, what do you think? It is – yes, it is from our little Cousin Philip!”
“Let me see,” said Gabrielle, peeping over her brother’s shoulder. “Poor, dear little Phil! Read aloud what he says, Rupert. I have often thought of him lately.”
Rupert smiled, sat down on the broad window-ledge, and his sister, kneeling behind him, laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder. A little letter, written with considerable pains and difficulty, with rather shaky and blotted little fingers, and quite uncorrected, just, in short, as nature had prompted it to a small, eager, and affectionate mind, was then read aloud:
“Dear Cousin Rupert: You must please forgive the spelling and the bad writing, and the blots (oh! I made a big one now, but I have sopped it up). This letter is quite secret, so it won’t be corrected, for mother doesn’t know that I am writing. Mother and I are in England, but she says I am not to tell you where we are. It isn’t that mother isn’t fond of you, but she has a reason, which is a great secret, for your not knowing where we are. The reason has something to do with me. It’s something that I’m to have that I don’t want and that I’d much rather you had. It’s a beautiful thing, with spiders, and rivers, and caterpillars, and wild ponies, and ghosts, and rattling armor, and a tower of winding stairs. Oh! I mustn’t tell you any more, for perhaps you’d guess. You are never to have it, although I’d like you to. We are not very far from the sea, and we’re going there to-morrow, and it is there I’ll post this letter. Now, I am quite determined that you and Gabrielle and Peggy shall know that I think of you always. Mother and me, we are in a beautiful, grand place now – very grand – and most enormous old; and I have two little girls to play with, and I have got a pony, and a white pup, and I am taught by a tutor, and drilled by a drill-sergeant, and I fish and play cricket with Kitty, only I can’t play cricket much, because of my side; but, Rupert, I want to say here, and I want you and Peggy and Gabrielle always and always to remember, that I’d rather be living with mother in our little cottage near Belmont, with only Betty as servant and with only Jim to clean the boots and do the garden, for then I should be near you; and I love you, Rupert, and Gabrielle, and Peggy, better than any one in the world except my mother. Please tell Peggy that I don’t think much of the English spiders, but some of the caterpillars are nice; and please tell Gabrielle that the English flowers smell very sweet, but they are not so bright or so big as ours, and the birds sing, oh! so beautiful, but they haven’t got such gay dresses. Good-by, Rupert. Do you shoot much? And do you ever think of me? And are you good to my little dog Cato?
“Phil Lovel.
“P. S. – Please, I’d like to hear from you, and as mother says you are not on no account to know where we are, will you write me a letter to the post-office at the town where this is posted? You will see the name of the town on the envelope, and please direct your letter:
‘Master Phil Lovel, ‘Post-office. ‘To be called for.’
“Be sure you put ‘to be called for’ in big letters.
“Good-by again. Love to everybody. Phil.”
Gabrielle and Rupert read this very characteristic little epistle without comment. When they had finished it, Rupert slipped it back into its envelope and gave it to his sister.
“We must both write to the poor little chap,” he said. “The postmark on the envelope is Southampton. I suppose Southampton, England, will find him.” Then he added after a pause: “I wonder what queer thing Aunt Bella is thinking about now?”
“She always was the silliest person in the world,” said Gabrielle in a tone of strong contempt. “If she were my mother I shouldn’t love her. I wonder how Phil loves her. Poor little Phil! He always was a dear little fellow – not a bit like Aunt Bella, thank goodness!”
Rupert laughed.
“Why, Gabrielle,” he said, “you can have no observation; Phil is the image of his mother. There is nothing at all belonging to his father about Phil except his eyes.”
“And his nature,” proceeded Gabrielle, “and his dear, brave little soul. I am sure if trial came to him Phil could be a hero. What matter that he has got Aunt Bella’s uninteresting features? He has nothing more of her in him. Oh, she always was a silly, mysterious person! Just think of her not allowing Phil to tell us where he is!”
“My father says that there is method in Aunt Bella’s silliness,” continued Rupert. “Don’t you remember how suddenly she sold her little house at the back of our garden, Gabrielle, and how Betty found her burning an English newspaper; and how queer and nervous and flurried she became all of a sudden; and then how she asked father to give her that £200 he had of hers in the bank; and how she hurried off without saying good-by to one of us? We have not heard a word about her from that day until now, when Phil’s little letter has come.”
“She never even bid mother good-by,” continued Gabrielle in a pained voice. “Mother always stood up for Aunt Bella. She never allowed us to laugh at her or to grumble at her funny, tiresome ways.”
“Did mother allow us to laugh at any one?” continued Rupert. “There was nothing at all remarkable in our mother being kind to poor Aunt Bella, for she was good to every one.”
“But there was something strange in Aunt Bella not bidding our mother good-by,” pursued Gabrielle, “for I think she was a little fond of mother, and mother was so weak and ill at the time. I saw tears in Aunt Bella’s eyes once after mother had been talking to her. Yes, her going away was certainly very queer; but I have no time to talk any more about it now. I must go to my work. Rupert, shall we ride this afternoon? This is just the most perfect weather for riding before the great summer heat commences.”
“Yes, we’ll be in summer before we know where we are,” said Rupert; “it is the 4th of November to-day. I will ride with you at three o’clock, Gabrielle – that is, if father is not back.”
The brother and sister left the room to pursue their different vocations, and a short time afterward an old servant, with a closely frilled cap tied with a ribbon under her chin, came into the room. She was the identical Betty who had been Mrs. Lovel’s maid-of-all-work, and who had now transferred her services to the young people at Belmont. Betty was old, wrinkled, and of Irish birth, and sincerely attached to all the Lovels. She came into the room under the pretext of looking for some needlework which Gabrielle had mislaid, but her real object was to peer into the now open post-bag, and then to look suspiciously round the room.
“I smell it in the air,” she said, sniffing as she spoke. “As sure as I’m Betty O’Flanigan there’s news of Master Phil in the air! Was there a letter? Oh, glory! to think as there might be a letter from my own little master, and me not to know. Miss Gabrielle’s mighty close, and no mistake. Well, I’ll go and ask her bold outright if she has bad news of the darlint.”
Betty could not find Gabrielle’s lost embroidery, and perceiving that the post-bag was absolutely empty, she pottered out of the room again and upstairs to where her young lady was making up some accounts in a pretty little boudoir which had belonged to her mother.
“Och, and never a bit of it can I see, Miss Gabrielle,” said the old woman as she advanced into the room; and then she began sniffing the air again.
“What are you making that funny noise for, Betty?” said Miss Lovel, raising her eyes from a long column of figures.
“I smell it in the air,” said Betty, sniffing in an oracular manner. “I dreamed of him three times last night, and that means tidings; and now I smell it in the air.”
“Oh! you dreamed of little Phil,” said Gabrielle in a kind tone. “Yes, we have just had a letter. Sit down there and I’ll read it to you.”
Betty squatted down instantly on the nearest hassock, and with her hands under her apron and her mouth wide open prepared herself not to lose a word.
Gabrielle read the letter from end to end, the old woman now and then interrupting her with such exclamations as “Oh, glory! May the saints presarve him! Well, listen to the likes of that!”
At last Gabrielle’s voice ceased; then Betty hobbled to her feet, and suddenly seizing the childish letter, not a word of which she could read, pressed it to her lips.
“Ah! Miss Gabrielle,” she said, “that mother of his meant mischief. She meant mischief to you and yours, miss, and the sweet child has neither part nor lot in the matter. If I was you, Miss Gabrielle, I’d ferret out where Mrs. Lovel is hiding Master Phil. What business had she to get into such a way about a bit of an English newspaper, and to hurry off with the child all in a twinkling like, and to be that flustered and nervous? And oh! Miss Gabrielle, the fuss about her clothes; and ‘did she look genteel in this?’ and ‘did she look quite the lady in that?’ And then the way she went off, bidding good-by to no one but me. Oh! she’s after no good; mark my words for it.”
“But she can do us no harm, Betty,” said Gabrielle. “Neither my father nor Rupert is likely to be injured by a weak kind of woman like Aunt Bella. I am sorry for little Phil; but I think you are silly to talk as you do of Aunt Bella. Now you may take the letter away with you and kiss it and love it as much as you like. Here comes father; he is back earlier than usual from Melbourne, and I must speak to him.”
Mr. Lovel, a tall, fine-looking man, with a strong likeness to both his son and daughter, now came hastily into the room.
“I have indeed come back in a hurry, Gabrielle,” he said. “That advertisement has appeared in the papers again. I have had a long talk with our business friend, Mr. Davis, and the upshot of it is that Rupert and I sail for Europe on Saturday. This is Tuesday; so you will have your hands pretty full in making preparations for such a sudden move, my dear daughter.”
“Is it the advertisement that appeared six months ago, father?” said Gabrielle in an excited voice. “Mother pointed it out to you then and you would take no notice of it.”
“These things are often put into newspapers simply as a kind of hoax, child,” said the father, “and it all seemed so unlikely. However, although I appeared to take no notice, I was not unmindful of Rupert’s interests. I went to consult with Davis, and Davis promised to make inquiries in England. He came to me this morning with the result of his investigations and with this advertisement in the Melbourne Times. Here it is; it is three months old, unfortunately. It appeared three months after the first advertisement, but Davis did not trouble me with it until he had got news from England. The news came this morning. It is of a satisfactory character and to the effect that the last Valentine Lovel, of Avonsyde, in the New Forest, Hampshire, died without leaving any male issue, and the present owners of the property are two unmarried ladies, neither of whom is young. Now, Gabrielle, you are a wise lass for your thirteen years, and as I have not your mother to consult with, I am willing to rely a little bit on your judgment. You read this, my daughter, and tell me what you make of it.”
As Mr. Lovel spoke he unfolded a sheet of the Melbourne Times, and pointing to a small paragraph in one of the advertisement columns which was strongly underscored with a blue pencil, he handed it to Gabrielle.
“Read it aloud,” he said. “They are strange words, but I should like to hear them again.”
Gabrielle, in her clear and bright voice, read as follows:
“Lovel. – If any of the lineal descendants of Rupert Lovel, of Avonsyde, New Forest, Hampshire, who left his home on the 20th August, 1684, are now alive and will communicate with Messrs. Baring & Baring, 128 Chancery Lane, London, they will hear of something to their advantage. Only heirs male in direct succession need apply.”
Gabrielle paused.
“Read on,” said her father. “The second part of the advertisement, or rather a second advertisement which immediately follows the first, is of more interest.”
Gabrielle continued:
“I, Griselda Lovel, and I, Katharine Lovel, of Avonsyde, New Forest, of the county of Hampshire, England, do, according to our late father’s will, earnestly seek an heir of the issue of one Rupert Lovel, who left Avonsyde on the 20th August, 1684, in consequence of a quarrel between himself and his father, the then owner of Avonsyde. By reason of this quarrel Rupert Lovel was disinherited, and the property has continued until now in the younger branch. According to our late father’s will, we, Griselda and Katharine Lovel, wish to reëstablish the elder branch of the family, and offer to make a direct descendant of the said Rupert Lovel our heir, provided the said descendant be under fifteen years of age and of sound physical health. We refuse to receive letters or to see any claimant personally, but request to have all communications made to us through our solicitors, Messrs. Baring & Baring, of 128 Chancery Lane, London, E. C.
“‘Tyde what may betyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.”
Gabrielle’s cheeks flushed brightly as she read.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, raising her eyes to the face of the tall man who stood near her, “do you really believe a little bit in it at last? Don’t you remember how I used to pray of you to tell me traditions of the old English home when I was a little child, and how often you have repeated that old rhyme to me, and don’t you know how mother used to treasure the tankard with the family crest and ‘Tyde what may’ in those queer, quaint English characters on it? Mother was quite excited when the first advertisement appeared, but you said we were not to talk or to think of it. Rupert is the rightful heir – is he not, father? Oh, how proud I shall be to think that the old place is to belong to him!”
“I believe he is the rightful heir, Gabrielle,” said her father in a grave voice. “He is undoubtedly a lineal descendant of the Rupert Lovel who left Avonsyde in 1684, and he also fulfills the conditions of the old ladies’ advertisement, for he is under fifteen and splendidly strong; but it is also a fact that I cannot find some very important letters which absolutely prove Rupert’s claim. I could swear that I left them in the old secretary in your mother’s room, but they have vanished. Davis, on the other hand, believes that I have given them to him, and will have a strict search instituted for them. The loss of the papers makes a flaw in my boy’s claim; but I shall not delay to go to England on that account. Davis will mail them to me as soon as ever they are recovered; and in the mean time, Gabrielle, I will ask you to pack up the old tankard and give it to me to take to England. There is no doubt whatever that that tankard is the identical one which my forefather took with him when almost empty-handed he left Avonsyde,”
