The Palace in the Garden Part 19

"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.

THE END.