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The next morning, after breakfast, as the Willoughbys prepared to take their leave from Allenham, the gentleman paused before his aunt and bowed.

“Aunt.”

“John.”

“I do not know how to thank you.”

“Do not try,” said Mrs. Smith. “It is not in your style.” She looked at him; and then, in the most unexpected way, she gave a short, dry, gratified sniff, and laid her old hand for a second upon his sleeve. “I have watched those two boys,” said she, “and I have not the smallest doubt that between them they have the whole of the Willoughby jaw, and that it will be the death of the neighbourhood. But I will say this. I have had a great deal of time in these years to think about what you might have made of yourself; and I never once, in any of it, thought of your little girl. You needed to be a father to a daughter. It has become you. You may go.”

The visit between the families had gone better, on the whole, than either father could have dared to hope. The children had taken to one another with the swiftness peculiar to the young, who have not yet learned to weigh the complications that trouble their elders.

That is not to say that Henry’s two families would thereafter make it a practice to be in company together. Perhaps if it had just been between themselves Marianne and Sophia might have managed it, but their husbands could not have. There was too much history for either one to ever be on truly friendly terms. And both couples returned to their respective homes and lived with a sense of relief that it was over. It had been agreed, before the horses were put to, that Henry should go, in the early winter, to Combe Magna, for a week, to see the pony and the elm.

But Mr. Willoughby had not been home a week before he sat down to write to Colonel Brandon on a matter that could, both men privately agreed, be put off no longer.

My dear Colonel,

I write to you on a subject we have both, I think, been content to leave unsettled rather longer than we ought. Henry cannot go on as he is — a boy of his years ought to have a name of his own, and not merely the want of one. It falls to us to decide it, and I would rather we decided it together, and plainly, than let it be decided for us by neglect.

I remain, most sincerely,

J. Willoughby

Brandon read this letter twice before he answered it, for he had, in truth, been expecting it, and had turned the matter over a good deal in his own mind already. He wrote back within the week.

Mr. Willoughby,

You are right that it cannot wait, and I confess I have thought of little else since your last visit. I will say plainly what I have long considered, and you may take it or leave it as you see fit: I am willing that he should be called Brandon. He has been raised under my roof these many years, and under my name in everything but the law of it, and I would think it no imposition, but rather an honour, to make it so in fact.

Sincerely,

C. Brandon

Willoughby did not answer at once. He sat some time with the letter before him, and felt, in reading it, both gratitude he could hardly express and discomfort he had not anticipated.

My dear Colonel,

Your generosity does not surprise me, for I have long since learned that little else could be expected of you where that boy is concerned. But I must lay before you a difficulty that weighs on me more than perhaps it ought to weigh on you.

It is no longer any great secret in London whose son he is. He has my look too plainly for it to be otherwise, and there has been talk — I need not tell you how such talk travels. I had thought, before, that a name might settle the matter quietly. I begin to fear it cannot.

Yours,

Willoughby

Brandon’s reply came somewhat quicker this time.

Mr. Willoughby,

I have thought of this too, and I will own it is no small consideration — but I think you have arrived at only half of it. Consider what would follow if the boy took your name instead of mine. It would not settle the talk — it would confirm it, past all further whispering, and there would be no end to it, for him or for your own family. Whatever is decided, I think we do him no kindness by pretending the world has not already made up its mind about who he is. The only question left to us is what he is to be called by those who love him, and I think that question ought not to be settled entirely between the two of us.

Sincerely,

C. Brandon

Willoughby read this last with a peculiar feeling — something between relief at being spared a decision he had not wanted to make alone, and a small, private grief at seeing so plainly stated what he had long known and rarely let himself think on. He wrote back that he agreed: the boy ought to be asked.

It was the Colonel who put the matter to him, one evening at Delaford, with Marianne beside him. He explained it to Henry as simply and as honestly as he knew how — that a boy could not go on forever without a settled name, that this was a thing for Henry himself to choose, and that his father, Mr. Willoughby, had agreed he should have the choosing of it. He might, if he wished, be called Willoughby. Or, if he wished it, he might be called Brandon.