"Mamma darling, it's all right. Mr. Lauriston, Mrs. Lauriston, all of you, help me to explain. I know where the children are – they're locked in, in the Old House – that's all that's wrong – I'm sure of it. It was a little plan of Charles Truro's and mine; we thought if I got to know the dear little things it might lead to something – to a reconciliation. They had found their way there by themselves, and told him about it. But I must go at once to let them out, the poor darlings. And, mamma, mamma, take courage – seize the moment. While I fetch them, you go to Uncle Ansdell and tell him the good news. You may never have such a chance again. Don't you think so, Mr. Lauriston – you who know the whole story – oh, do say you think she should do it?" and Regina wrung her hands in her eagerness.

It took a little cross-questioning to make them understand all; but Regina got her way. Barstow, to keep him quiet, was allowed to go off with the gardener to get the drags, and in less time than you would have thought it possible they all set off – Mr. Lauriston, Regina, and her mother. But at the gate of Rosebuds they separated. Regina hurried on down the lane with the rector, her mother with trembling, shaking steps, went in and made her way up to the porch.

The front door stood open; in the confusion and excitement nobody had thought of closing it.

Grandpapa – poor grandpapa – was sitting as Mrs. Munt had left him when she went off to give orders about dragging the pools. A little noise, the door softly opening and closing again, made him look up. A tall figure, all dressed in black, with a white, sweet, anxious face and blue eyes, like Tib's and grandpapa's own, streaming with tears, stood beside him. He stared at it half stupefied. I think he thought he was dreaming. But it spoke.

"Brother, dear, dear brother, it is I. Do you know me – will you forgive me at last? Oh, dear, dear brother, forgive me."

He gazed at her as if he did not see her.

"I do not know why you have come," he said. "Do you know what has happened? My children – poor Gerald's children – are drowned, all of them. I am quite alone in the world."

"No, no," she cried, "they are not drowned. They will be here in a few minutes. It was that gave me courage to come – to bring you the good news. Gerald, for their sake, for the dear children's sake, won't you at last forgive me and let me help you with them? Oh, I will love them so if you will let me. Brother, say quick before they come – say you will forgive me at last. I have so suffered, I have been punished so long. Brother, say you forgive your poor Queenie."

She half knelt, half sank down beside him – all I am writing is from what Regina has told me, and her mother herself told her – grandpapa stretched out his arms, and she flung herself into them.

"Queenie, my little Queenie," he said, "you have brought me the good news – is it true, quite true?"

Auntie – that is, of course, what she is to us – auntie was almost frightened. He was so gentle, so clinging, and unlike his usual cold decided self. And a sort of terror went through her for a moment, "Suppose it didn't turn out to be true that we were safe."

"I should never forgive myself, never," she thought, "if I have raised his hopes only for them to be dashed again;" and even while she went on repeating that it was true, he would see us directly, she trembled.

But there came a noise – a very slight, distant sound at first – of many voices and steps approaching. Auntie's ears are quick, and that evening they were quicker than usual, even. She heard it ever so far off, long before grandpapa heard anything. And she listened, trembling. Were the voices cheerful? —was it all right?

I have so often heard all the story of that evening – of other people's part of it, I mean – that I seem to be able to see it all for myself as it must have looked to them. I can so picture auntie standing there, scarcely daring to breathe in her anxiety to hear! And the first thing that quite reassured her was Regina's voice speaking in a pitying, petting, yet laughing way to Gerald.

"My poor old man! no one will be vexed with you for crying, for, as you say, you are only seven years old." Of course, in Gerald's troubles he had begun his old cry!

And in another moment the dining-room door opened and a queer-looking group appeared. There was Regina in a shawl thrown over her head, she had not waited to put on her hat; there was Mr. Lauriston and two or three gardeners and people we had gathered on the way – for, of course, we had come round by the proper entrance to the Old House, and had found them all at the pit – and in the middle of the crowd three very dishevelled-looking little figures, with eyes swollen with crying, and now blinking at the sudden light, who rushed forward to grandpapa, calling out all together —

"Oh! dear grandpapa, please forgive us. We didn't mean to disobey you."

And before we knew where we were he had us all in his arms at once, and he was hugging us as he had never hugged us before.

"My children," he said, "my dear little children."

But when he looked up and saw Regina, he really did start.

"Is it – ?" he began, and then he looked round at auntie. "It is yourself over again," he said, "it is you, Queenie – as I last saw you."

Fancy that; fancy the years and years that had gone by since they had met! How very, very strange it must have seemed.

But auntie explained who Regina was, and then grandpapa kissed her too, with a curious wistful look in his eyes. And then came hurrying in nurse and Mrs. Munt, whom the good news of our return had just reached, and we were bundled off to bed, where we each had some nice hot stuff to drink, and Regina explained all the queer story to the two old servants, while down stairs grandpapa and auntie were together alone. And all that they had to tell and ask of course we would never expect to hear, but still, we had enough told to us to make all that had puzzled us plain, and to clear away all remains of our family "mystery."

This I will tell you in the next chapter. And I will also explain to you how Regina had come to know of our having found our way into the Old House, the hopes that this had put into her head – hopes which had been more than fulfilled, thanks to the accident with the key, which had so strangely turned to good.

CHAPTER XII
THE STORY OF THE OLD HOUSE

"Old house! that time hath deigned to spare,
'Mid sunny slopes and gardens fair." – Sigourney.

t all seemed like a dream the next morning. We slept much later than usual, for we were quite tired out. I can never even now think of that evening – shut up in the dark in the big bare room – without a sort of shudder. It really was dreadful: we were so cold that when we did fall asleep it was only to wake again with a start to find ourselves shivering and aching. And it was frightening, too: though we squeezed together as close as we could, we felt dreadfully alone. And alone we really were; for, as we understood afterwards, there was nobody at all in the Old House. The person who dusted it was the woman who lived at the lodge, and only came up in the mornings. Regina had taken her a little into her confidence. The day she hurried away when a bell rang, it was the woman ringing to let her know the Rectory pony-carriage was coming up the lane. Auntie knew that Regina came to the Old House, but she thought it was just to wander about the garden, and that day she had promised to call for her at the lodge. For the Old House belonged to auntie: it had belonged to the Mowbrays for a very, very great many years. And this brings me to the story of the long-ago troubles which we were told – the story which explained everything which had puzzled us.

It was Mrs. Munt who told it us. She came into our room – Tib's and my room – that morning before we were up – we had had our breakfast in bed – and sat down between our cots.

"My dears," she began, "your dear grandpapa and – and my dear lady, Mrs. Mowbray, Miss Queenie as was – they have asked me to tell you something of the past, so that you may understand all. It is a great honour they have done me, and I will endeavour to show that I feel it such. But oh," and here she fairly broke down, "this is a happy, a blessed day – to see them at one again, and oh, my dears, it was a happy day that brought you to Rosebuds, for all the anguish of heart of Mrs. Liddy and myself last night, we shall never but be thankful to the over-ruling powers as directed the finding of the key, and your innocent minds to the Old House."

At this point Mrs. Munt stopped. It was a sort of little address which she thought it her duty to make, and after this, she went straight on.

"It is a many years ago," she said, "that it all happened. When I first came to Rosebuds as a young girl to help in the cooking, there was living here your grandpapa, then a little boy of ten, and his brother Baldwin, and Miss Mary, with their mother, and their father, who was on the point of going abroad with his regiment. Not long after he left, Miss Regina was born; then came the news of your great-grandpapa's death, and the shock affected your great-grandmamma so much that she never recovered it. She died a year or two after, Master Baldwin being by that time preparing for the army, for he was five years older than Master Gerald, and Miss Mary older than he. Miss Mary took charge of things with a lady to help her. You can fancy that everybody was devoted to Miss Regina, Master Gerald especially. Some years later, Ansdell Friars came to Master Baldwin, by his uncle's death. He came home from time to time, and we used to spend a part of the year there, but it never seemed home to us, like Rosebuds. Your grandpapa married young – he was about twenty-four, and Miss Queenie was thirteen. Poor Miss Mary died the year before his marriage; you have seen her tomb at Ansdell, and it seemed well to him to marry, to have a lady at the head of things, him having so much charge like, for his brother. And your papa was born when Miss Queenie was about fifteen. Your grandpapa's marriage was a very happy one; Mrs. Ansdell was a very sweet lady, and suited him well. She had not half the spirit nor the cleverness of Miss Queenie, and she gave in to her husband, and she joined with him in thinking there never was so beautiful a creature as Miss Queenie. How they did spoil her! Poor Master Gerald – your papa, my dears, seemed nobody and nothing in the family, compared with his auntie, though he was a dear little boy. Well, to explain – next door to Rosebuds, as you now understand, is the Old House. It is a far finer and larger place than this, and it has always belonged to the Mowbrays, who are cousins of the Ansdells, by a Miss Regina Mowbray having married an Ansdell – your grandpapa's grandmother she was, as well as I can remember. It is her picture that hangs in the big drawing-room – "

"The old princess!" we exclaimed, at which Mrs. Munt smiled – "and," she went on, "it is from her, they always say, that comes the beauty – the dark hair and blue eyes, the Ansdells are, so to say, proud of. Well," – Mrs. Munt here hurried on a little, I think she thought it not good for us to say much about family beauty; it didn't matter to me, with my shaggy light hair, and browny-greeny eyes, but Tib is different – "the families at the two houses were very intimate – that door in the wall was made in the Old House conservatory as a short cut for the young ladies to run in and out by – they and the rectory family, this Mr. Lauriston's uncle it was then, but this one was a great deal there, were all most friendly. At the Old House there were some sisters – one is living still, being Mr. Truro's mother – and two brothers. The eldest brother was a nice gentleman, just everything a gentleman should be, and your grandpapa was delighted when he spoke to him for Miss Queenie. Miss Queenie laughed and made fun of it, but in the end she said 'yes,' and all would have been well – for he was a gentleman no woman could have failed to care for as a husband – had not the younger brother come home on leave. He had not seen Miss Queenie since she was grown up, for he was a sailor, and had been long away. He was handsome, and had a taking way with him – a sort of dash about him, and he was selfish and false. He fell in love with her, and persuaded her that she had fallen in love with him, and rather than be open about it, bad as it was to have lured her away from his brother, he made it worse by getting her to run away with him, and not let any one know where they were, till he wrote to say they were married. My dears, from that day till yesterday, your grandpapa and she never met again."

"Was he so angry?" we asked.

"Anger is no word for it. He was turned to stone to her. The deceitfulness – that was always his cry. Poor Mr. John Mowbray – his great friend, the one who had really the most to complain of, was far gentler, though it broke his heart. He never married, and at his death, two years ago, all came to your auntie as his brother's widow, for Mr. Conrad, the brother, was dead. That is how the Old House is now your auntie's, but she has never lived there. She could not bear it, seeing her brother would not forgive her, and she had made up her mind to sell it, and came to stay at the Rectory to get it all arranged. It was partly hearing it was going to be sold, made your grandpapa think of coming here again at last – he thought it was all quite settled, and no fear of any one coming about. For he has not even had any friendliness with the Rectory folk all these years; the old rector spoke to him before he died, and begged him to forgive Miss Queenie, but it only made him harder. He would never hear her name – he scored it out wherever he came across it in a book – "

"Oh, yes, we saw that in London," we interrupted.

"Nothing," continued Mrs. Munt, "but the sight of her poor, sweet, worn face would have changed him, and to think that she should have been the one to tell him the good news last night – it is indeed wonderful how it has come about."

"Was auntie very unhappy with that man – the one she married?" asked Tib in a low voice. Mrs. Munt looked sad and grave.

"My dears," she said, solemnly, "no good comes of ill-doing. The man who deceived his kind brother, who set himself to wile a girl away from her truest and best friends, was not the man to make a good husband. She must have suffered more than you – or we, maybe – could understand. But it is past, and you need never think of it again, except as a warning. Your dear auntie may tell you more herself as you grow older. But for me, I think I have done my part; and, indeed, I could almost feel the work of my life is near its end now I have lived to see my dear master and his best-loved sister united again," and poor Mrs. Munt wiped her eyes as she kissed us, and said we might get up now – we were to go to the Rectory to luncheon.

You will be glad to hear that she is living still, and likely to live for many peaceful years to come.

We were, of course, very much interested in all she had told us. It took some time to get it quite straight and clear in our heads, especially as we felt that we should not much like to talk over the saddest parts of it with any one but ourselves: not even with Regina, for, of course, the man who had brought so much misery to them all – Mr. Conrad Mowbray – was her father (I am not going to let her read this last chapter if I can help it); and even about dear auntie, we felt it would not be kind to talk about it to Regina – though now I can scarcely fancy even Regina herself feeling more tender about anything and everything to do with her mother than Tib and I, who are really only her grandnieces, do.

We were at the same time in a hurry to get dressed, and go down stairs, and yet a little afraid.

"Last night I wasn't afraid of grandpapa," said Tib; "we seemed all worked up, so that only the realest feelings mattered. Little top feelings, like being shy and all that, seemed pushed away."

I didn't answer for a moment. I was thinking over what she said.

"Do you think our being afraid of grandpapa and fancying we don't love him is only a top feeling after all?" I said.

"Yes," said Tib, "I do. Anyway, I'm going to love him now. Perhaps, if he has so many to love him now – auntie and Regina, and you and me – all at once, the lot of it will make up for his having had so little all these years. Things come like that sometimes, I suppose."

While we were talking – we took a good while to dress, for we wanted to be very neat to go to the Rectory – there came a tap at the door, and in walked Gerald, as cool as a cucumber.

"I'm ready," he said, and indeed one could see by the scrubby look of his cheeks that he had had an extra amount of soap. "I've got my best suit on to go to the Rectory."

"But, Gerald," said Tib, "don't you want to hear all about how it's all been. Gussie and I can tell you," for I forgot to say that Mrs. Munt had told us we had better explain a little to him. "Don't you want to know why the Old House that we called the palace was shut up, and how it comes to be auntie's, and how she is our auntie, and – "

"No," interrupted Gerald. "I don't want to know anything. It puzzles me. I'm only seven years old."

We looked at him in astonishment. Then we fairly burst out laughing.

"I never saw such a boy," said Tib. "You're so lazy, Gerald, you won't even let your mind work enough to understand about your own family."

"I do understand all I need," said Gerald; "I understand that we've got an auntie, and that she's very kind, and that Regina is a cousin, and she's very nice too – so nice that I'm still going to think she's a fairy. That's what I've settled, and I think it's quite enough when I'm only seven."

And from that day to this I have never heard him express any curiosity or make any inquiries as to all that had happened. I fancy Gerald will get through life comfortably – though to do him justice he is working very well at school, and doesn't seem to be considered lazy at all.

Tib and I had still enough questions to ask to make up for his not asking any. We were in a fever to see Regina, and very glad when Gerald ran up stairs again to say that she had just driven over in the Lauristons' pony-carriage to fetch us, and was waiting downstairs, and we hurried down as fast as we could.

"But what about grandpapa?" said Tib, as we got to the first landing. "Should we not go to say good morning or something to him?"

I hesitated, but just at that moment we heard his voice. He was standing in the porch talking to Regina. You can't think how funny it seemed. When he heard us he came into the hall and met us at the foot of the stairs. Then he kissed us each, in a way he had never kissed us before. It was like saying, "You understand all now. Let us begin a new life together;" though his said words were only, "Good morning, my dear children. Are you all quite well and not tired now?"

"Quite well, thank you, dear grandpapa," and I am sure he understood "between the lines," as people say of a letter meaning more than it shows.

"I wish you could come with us, Uncle Gerald," said Regina, as we were driving off.

"Thank you, my dear, but I am very busy," he said. There was a look in his eyes to her that I had never seen before.

"But Charlie will be here this afternoon, and he does help you, doesn't he?" she said.

"Very much," grandpapa replied.

We looked back at him, standing there in the doorway.

"Grandpapa is changed since last night," said Tib.

"How?" said Regina, anxiously. "You don't think he's ill?"

"No," said Tib, "though he does look very pale. But his face seems older and yet younger. It has got a sort of softer look, as if at last he wasn't going to fight against himself anymore, but that it has tired him."

"Yes," said Regina, "I understand. Then you understand now – you and Gussie?"

"Yes," we answered. "Mrs. Munt has told us a great deal. But there are some things only you can tell us, and we want dreadfully to ask you."

"Fire away," said Regina, and she did so laugh when we didn't understand her; for, of course, though she had never had any brothers or sisters, she hadn't lived the shut-up way we had done.

"We want to know," we began, "how you knew about us going to the – the Old House, and how you knew our names and about us altogether."

"It was Charlie Truro that told me about you," she said. "He is my cousin as much – no, a good deal more – than he is yours, and we have always been a great deal together. He has known what a terrible sorrow it was to mamma to be estranged from her only brother, and he and I have often planned what we could do. We were very glad when Uncle Gerald agreed to take him as a sort of secretary for a while – it seemed a sort of beginning."

"I wonder grandpapa ever did," I said. "Wasn't it rather a wonder? For he knew he was a near cousin of yours, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Regina, "but it came about naturally enough, through some friends who had no connection with us. And once he had seen Charlie, Uncle Gerald seems to have taken a fancy to him. We came down here to stay at the Rectory, not knowing any one was at Rosebuds. Your coming was kept very quiet. Then Charlie told us of it, when he wrote, and when he came down here he managed to come to see us one day – a Sunday it was – at the Rectory, and told us all about you. And to me, though to no one else, he told of your funny trouble, about having got into the Old House and wondering if it was naughty, and then we planned together – he and I – that I should meet you there. I don't know exactly what I hoped for – I think Charlie had a vague idea that some day Uncle Gerald might see me, and that – with me being so like mamma – it might do some good. But we hadn't fixed anything, we meant to talk it all over the next time he came – to-day, that is. He little thought he would find it all done when he came."

"Won't he be surprised!" I said.

"Mamma sent him a telegram this morning," she said. "He deserved it."

But by this time we were at the Rectory.

We couldn't help feeling rather shy; we had really never been out anywhere before except once, in London, when we had gone to have tea with a niece of nurse's, who had a shop in one of the big streets, and we had tea in the parlour behind. So that was quite different, of course. At the Rectory it was very nice except for our being shy. But after luncheon, when we went out into the garden with auntie, she soon sent away the shyness. She was just as kind and understanding as she could be, as she has been ever since – such a perfect auntie that our only wonder now is how we ever did without her all those years.

We had to tell her all our story over again, all from the beginning of grandpapa's telling us we were to come to Rosebuds, and the book with the name scored through; we had to tell her, though we were afraid of making her cry, down to our finding the key and getting into the house, and the old princess, and the new princess, and all. She asked us questions, too, about Ansdell Friars, and in what ways it was changed since she had seen it.

"I should like to see it again," she said; "though it would never seem as much home to me as here," and she sighed a little.

"But you're not going away from here now, auntie," we said, "You're not going to sell the Old House?"

Auntie smiled.

"I hope not," she said. "They all think I am in no way bound to Jackman. Indeed, it was his haggling so about the price that brought me down here this summer. But one thing I have already given orders for: those horrid pools are to be filled up at once. I won't have dear Gerald's peace of mind disturbed by any anxiety I can do away with."

We stared – it wasn't for a minute or two that we understood whom she was talking of. It was so funny to hear grandpapa spoken of as "Gerald" – and when we found out whom she meant, we all burst out laughing. And while we were still laughing we heard wheels, and there was Mr. Truro, who had looked in for a moment on his way from the station. I don't think I ever saw any one's face look so happy and pleased as his did!

We all went back together to Rosebuds. Auntie and Regina said they were going to have afternoon tea with grandpapa, and you don't know how nice it looked, all neatly put out in the pretty old drawing-room, and poor auntie kept giving little cries of mixed pleasure and pain as she recognised one old friend after another among the china and the silver, and even the cakes, which were a secret of Mrs. Munt's that no one could make but herself.

And after tea we had a great treat. Auntie persuaded grandpapa that the air would do him good, and so she coaxed him out into the garden and then down the lane, and so on into the Old House grounds. And then she and Regina took us all over it – "It is best to get over the first seeing it again at once," I heard auntie whisper to grandpapa, "and the children's pleasure will make it seem different."

It is such a beautiful old house. I could write almost another book about it, and it was so strange to get into the big drawing-room by the double doors through which Regina used to disappear, to see our old princess smiling down at us in our happiness just exactly as she had done in our trouble!

Poor old, ever young princess! We shall always love you, but nothing, nothing like our own dear bright living fairy who has brought such new joy and good into our lives. We have seldom been parted from her and her mother since that day; we are almost always together, grandpapa and auntie and Regina and we children, and very often Mr. Truro too. Grandpapa says he is getting very old, but he really doesn't look so, and even when he does get "very old," we shall all only love him the better.