had brought a new element into our lives--she had indeed!--and John
would reply, 'I know what you mean,' and go on to prophesy that she
would 'bind us together.' We didn't need binding together; we were
more to each other, there in the desolation of that arid frontier
outpost, than most husbands and wives; but it seemed a proper and
hopeful thing to believe, so we believed it. Of course, the real
experience would have come, we weren't monsters; but fate curtailed
the opportunity. She was just five weeks old when the doctor told
us that we must either pack her home immediately or lose her, and
the very next day John went down with enteric. So Cecily was sent
to England with a sergeant's wife who had lost her twins, and I
settled down under the direction of a native doctor, to fight for my
husband's life, without ice or proper food, or sickroom comforts of
any sort. Ah! Fort Samila, with the sun glaring up from the sand!--
however, it is a long time ago now. I trusted the baby willingly to
Mrs. Berry and to Providence, and did not fret; my capacity for
worry, I suppose, was completely absorbed. Mrs. Berry's letter,
describing the child's improvement on the voyage and safe arrival
came, I remember, the day on which John was allowed his first solid
mouthful; it had been a long siege. 'Poor little wretch!' he said
when I read it aloud; and after that Cecily became an episode.

She had gone to my husband's people; it was the best arrangement.
We were lucky that it was possible; so many children had to be sent
to strangers and hirelings. Since an unfortunate infant must be
brought into the world and set adrift, the haven of its grandmother
and its Aunt Emma and its Aunt Alice certainly seemed providential.
I had absolutely no cause for anxiety, as I often told people,
wondering that I did not feel a little all the same. Nothing, I
knew, could exceed the conscientious devotion of all three Farnham