replied, rather incoherently, for she was already buried
in her letter, 'that's what she says. "Aunt Flora"--is that Mrs Lyle,
mamma?--"Aunt Flora told us you had gone to live up in the north. I am
afraid it can't be as bright and pretty there as at Thetford, but still
it must be lovely to have your father and mother with you for always
now. I think I can understand far better than ever what a very great
trouble it must have been to you and your sister to be without them all
those years, for oh, we did so miss father and mother when they were in
London for six months, and then in Germany. They took Margaret with them
to Germany, and it did her such a lot of good. I have wanted to write to
you ever so often, and so has Camilla, but mother wasn't quite sure how
we could say what we wished. But now she has had another letter from
Aunt Flora, and this has made her give me leave to write and tell you
all our beautiful news. Just fancy, dear Francie, father is _almost_
quite well. Of course he will always be lame, but he counts that
nothing, and it's really not so bad nearly as it was. All he had done at
the London hospital and then the German baths has turned out _so well_,
and now to make it--the cure, I mean--quite lasting, we are
_all_--though I write it, I can scarcely believe it--going abroad to
some mild place for the winter. We have not quite fixed where; but we
have let Hedge End till next May, and we shall start very soon. If you
write to me, please address it to Hedge End. And now I want to say
something that is rather difficult to say. What has made everything come
right has been the goodness of father's aunt, Lady Myrtle Goodacre. Just
when we were almost in despair, and it seemed as if nothing _could_ save
father, she sent mother a lot of money: she said it was a present, but
_we_ all count it a loan. It was enough to do everything, and more than
enough, and we can never, never thank her too much. But in our hearts we
all feel sure that, though you kept exactly to what mother and Camilla
asked, yet some of you, _somehow_, have been our good fairies. Perhaps
it was your sister Jacinth, perhaps it was Mrs Mildmay; and I am sure,
dear Francie, that if ever _you_ had a chance you spoke kindly of us;
perhaps we shall never know exactly who did it, or how it was done, so
wisely and carefully as it must have been. But oh, we _do_ thank you; if
you could see the difference in everything about us now, how we are all
as hap