"We'll see to it that you're put down, safe and sound, at Charing Cross," Mr. Herbert Montgomery finished up.

I looked up again, this time in sheer bewilderment.

"Liverpool's in Lancashire," Hilda explained. "I thought perhaps you were afraid we would desert you as soon as we docked."

I laughed in some embarra.s.sment.

"I'm sure I never before heard that Liverpool had any connection with Lancashire," I explained. "But I was thinking of--something else."

"Something else--how curious! Why, what else is Lancashire noted for in America, pray?"

They were all three looking at me in some excitement, for my eyes were betraying the palpitations I was experiencing.

"Do you--does it happen that you have ever heard of Colmere Abbey?" I asked.

They drew a deep breath, evidently relieved.

"Do we!" they chorused again, as they had a habit of doing, I learned, whenever they were surprised or amused. "Well, _rather_!"

"Surely you don't mean to tell me that it's your own home?" I demanded, wondering if coincidence had gone so far, but they shook their heads.

"No! Just next-door neighbors."

"Next-door neighbors to the place, my dear young lady," Mr. Montgomery modified, glancing at his wife rather reproachfully. "Not to the--owner of Colmere!"

But I scarcely heard him. I was trying to place an ancient memory in my mind.

"'Bannerley Hall!'"

"That's our place."

"But I'm trying to remember where I have heard of it," I explained.

"Of course! They all mentioned it at one time or another."

"They?--Who, my dear? Why Herbert--isn't this interesting?"

"Why, Washington Irving--and Lady Frances Webb--and Uncle James Christie."

Their questions and my half-dazed answers were tumbling over one another.

"James Christie--Grace Christie?" Mrs. Montgomery asked, connecting our names with a delighted opening of her eyes. "Why, my _dear_!"

"How fortunate I was!" observed Hilda. "I knew, though, from the moment I saw the back of your head that you were no ordinary American tourist!"

"They all 'rode over to Bannerley Hall--the day being fine!'" I quoted, from one of the letters written by Lady Frances Webb.

"That was in my great-grandfather's time," Mr. Montgomery elucidated.

"And James Christie was your----"

"Uncle--with several 'greats' between."

"He was even more famous in England than in his own country," Mrs.

Montgomery threw in hastily, as she saw her husband's eyes twinkling--a sure sign, I afterward learned, that he was going to say something wicked. "He painted all the notable people of the age."

"He made many pictures of the Lady Frances Webb," Mr. Montgomery succeeded in saying, after a while. "I don't know whether it's well known in America or not, but--there was--_talk_!"

"Herbert!"

He stiffened.

"It's true, my dear."

"We don't know whether it's true or not!" she contended.

"Well, it's tradition! I'm sure Miss Christie wouldn't want to come to England and not learn all the old legends she might."

Then, partly because I was bubbling over with excitement, and partly because I wished to ease Mrs. Montgomery's mind on the subject, I began telling them my story--from the day of Aunt Patricia's sudden whim, three days before her death, down to the packet of faded letters lying at that moment in the bottom of my steamer trunk.

"I thought perhaps the present owner of Colmere might let me burn them there!" I explained. "I have pictured her as a dear and somewhat lonely old dowager who would take a great deal of interest in this ancient affair."

The three looked at me intently for an instant, but not one of them laughed.

"And you're carrying them back to Colmere--instead of selling them!"

Mrs. Montgomery finally uttered in a little awed voice, as I finished my story. "How extraordinary!"

"Very," said Hilda.

"Most un-American--if you'll not be offended with me for saying so, Miss Christie," Mr. Montgomery observed. Then he turned to his wife.

"My dear, only _think_ of Lord Erskine!" he said.

She shook her head.

"But I mustn't!" she answered, with a sad little smile. "I really couldn't think of Lord Erskine while listening to anything so pretty."

I caught at the name, curiously.

"Lord Erskine?"

"Yes--the present owner of the abbey."

"But--what a beautiful-sounding name! Lord Erskine!"

I looked at them encouragingly, but a hush seemed to have fallen over their audible enthusiasm. Mrs. Montgomery's lips presently primped themselves up into a signal for me to come closer to her side--where her husband might not hear her.

"Lord Erskine is, my dear--the most--notorious old man in _England_!"

she p.r.o.nounced--so terribly that "And may the Lord have mercy on his soul" naturally followed. Her verdict was final.

"But what has he done?" I started to inquire, the journalistic tendency for the moment uppermost, but her lips showed white lines of repression.