“This is a very curious story,” said Dr Brewer. “I don’t pretend to understand it very well, but so far as I can make out---- What was the name? Of course there are family quarrels now and then, and sons who bring a great deal of trouble upon everybody----” “That could never be the case with papa,” cried Grace proudly; “I am sure he must have been wronged.” “Many an excellent man has been foolish in his youth,” said the doctor; “we must not take things too solemnly. If you will tell me the name, perhaps I may recollect if it has figured in the papers.” Here both the girls were up in arms. They confronted him with flaming eyes, and a blaze of anger. “Doctor, I think you don’t understand at all! If you think our dear father, whom we have just lost,”--and here Grace’s voice wavered, and Milly dried her eyes--“was likely to do anything that would be in the papers----” “Why, my dear children,” cried the doctor, “how unreasonable you are! Of course, he was in the papers a hundred times over. A man of note in his community--a public man with letters to the Colonial Secretary, and who entertained the Prince, as you told me yourselves----” Here they looked at each other again, and blushed at their mistake. “Yes, to be sure,” said Grace. “Dr Brewer is right, and we are silly. I was thinking of something else.” “Probably, for instance,” said the doctor, “there were advertisements in what people call the agony column, entreating him to go home. You don’t know the agony column? Oh, it is very easy to laugh; but there are sometimes appeals there that remind one of sad stories one has known. A doctor, you know, hears a hundred stories. What was the name?” Once more that consulting look, and once more a blush of excitement tinged with real diffidence, and a little embarrassment of shame. They could not bear to think of a name which was fictitious, of anything that was untrue about their history. “You know,” said Grace, hesitating, feeling for the moment as if no inheritance, not even an old castle or even a title, which had vaguely glanced across her mind as a possibility, could make up for this falsehood--“you know, we are not at all sure that it was papa. He never mentioned anything of the kind, nor did we ever hear it before. The name was Crosthwaite. It is not pretty; it is an odd name.” “Crosthwaite--Crosthwaite: where have I heard it? It is not pretty, as you say; it is a north-country name, Yorkshire perhaps, or--where did I hear it? Ah, I remember, some one had been making inquiries down-stairs.” “It was Geoffrey,” cried Milly unawares: and then blushed more deeply than she had hitherto blushed either for shame or anger, and caught herself up, and drew back a little, in embarrassment which did not seem to have any adequate cause. “Then you know the people?” the doctor said in surprise.