These I put aside; they were relics to be specially treasured. And then I repacked the great box (filling up the space with some of poor Emma’s possessions), and sent it down-stairs. I had a great deal too many cases for a person of my indigent circumstances. My own paraphernalia was sufficiently modest, but I could not and would not abandon that great pile of luggage which had no living owners. I was going to London the next day. I had bidden good-by to the grave—paid our small accounts. I had packed up all Emma’s belongings. I was now busily putting together my own effects in my little room above the drawing-room: I do believe that one’s clothes _swell_! I was very hot and tired as I knelt on the floor stuffing mine into a choking trunk, when Mrs. Gabb came pounding up the stairs and gasped out as she opened the door, “There’s a gentleman below!” My mind of course, flew to Mr. Somers, and I made a gesture of dismissal. “I can’t see _any one_,” I began.
“He says he must see you; and he—I couldn’t well catch his name, but I believe he is _lord_. Here, just tidy yourself, and let me pick the white threads off you.”
I hurried down, with a very tumultuous heart, and discovered (as I had half suspected) Lord Chalgrove. The room was in the utmost confusion, and he was standing in the middle of it, with one of the little water-color drawings in his hand, which he laid aside as I entered.
“Miss Hayes, I—I believe?” he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.
“You are the daughter of Desmond Hayes and my sister Gwendoline?”
“Then, my dear,” he said, taking my hand in his, “I have come to take you home.”
“You understand, don’t you, that I am your uncle? Your mother was my only sister—you are my nearest of kin, except Dolly. You are the image of my poor Gwen!”
And this sedate little gray-bearded gentleman, whom I had never spoken to before, drew me nearer to him and kissed me timidly.
“How did you find me out?” I asked as he sat down beside me.
“I saw Mrs. Hayes’s death in the paper. I made inquiries from Grindlay and Co. her agents. There _was_ a Miss Hayes, they believed—a step-daughter—and I came by the first train. I am going to take you back with me to-day”—looking at his watch—“by the four o’clock train. We shall not be home before ten o’clock to-night. I see you are half packed.”