The child was always delighted to see her grandfather, and James took to him greatly, and liked nothing better than to stroll up with him to a sheltered spot on the hillside, where he would throw himself down on the grass, while the sergeant smoked his pipe and told him stories of his travels and adventures, and Aggie ran about looking for wildflowers, or occasionally sat down, for a while, to listen also.
The squire lived his usual lonely life up at the Hall.

The absence of his nephew, whose ship had sailed for a foreign station, was a relief rather than otherwise to him.

It had, from the first, been a painful effort to him to regard this boy as his heir, and he had only done it when heartsick from a long and fruitless search for one who would have been nearer and dearer to him.

Nor had he ever taken to the lad personally.

The squire felt that there was not the ring of true metal in him.