to know all about our family, Fred included; so Duke, in his
ultra hospitality, took the creature in for the night, and this morning
drove him over to Kingcombe Holm. There, don't let us bother ourselves
about him. How do you feel now, Anne? Quite well, eh?"

"Quite well," Anne echoed in her cheerful voice that never had a tone
of pain or complaining. But it seemed to strike Mr. Dugdale, who had
lounged up to her side. His peculiarly gentle and observant look rested
on her for a moment, and then he offered her his arm, an act of courtesy
very rare in the absent Duke Dugdale. Agatha walked on her other hand;
Harrie fluttering about them, and talking very fast, chiefly about the
wonderful news of yesterday, which her husband had just communicated.

"And a great shame not to tell me long before. As if I did not care
for Uncle Brian as much as anybody does. What a Christmas we shall
have--Uncle Brian, Nathanael, and Fred."

"Is Major Harper coming?" The question was from Anne.

"Elizabeth hopes so. He surely will not disappoint Elizabeth. And he
must come to see Uncle Brian; they were such friends, you know. All the
middle-aged oddities in Kingcombe are on the _qui vive_ to see
Uncle Brian and Fred. They two were the finest young fellows in the
neighbourhood, people say, and to think they should both come back
miserable old bachelors! Nobody married but my poor Duke! Hurra!"

So she rattled on until they reached Agatha's door. One of the Kingcombe
Holm servants stood there with the carriage. Mrs. Locke Harper was
wanted immediately, to dine at her father-in-law's.

"I will not go. I will not leave Miss Valery. They don't often ask
me--indeed, I have never been since--No, I will not go," she added
obstinately.

"Do!" entreated Anne, who had sat down, faint with a walk so short that
no one thought of its fatiguing her--not even Agatha.

"T' Squire do want'ee very bad, Missus. Here!" And the old coachman,
almost as old as his master, gave to Mrs. Harper a note, which was only
the second she had ever received from her husband's father. It was a
crabbed, ancient hand, blotted and blurred, then steadied resolutely
into the preciseness of a school-boy--one of those pathetic fragments of
writing that irresistibly remind one of the trembling failing hand--the
hand that once wrote brave love-letters.

"You are highly favoured; my father rarely writes to any one. What does
he say?" cried Harrie, rather jealous.

Agatha rea