Whilst Mr. Bartley's business was improving under Hope's management, Hope
himself was groaning under his entire separation from his daughter.
Bartley had promised him this should not be; but among Hope's good
qualities was a singular fidelity to his employers, and he was also a man
who never broke his word. So when Bartley showed him that the true
parentage of Grace Hope--now called Mary Bartley--could never be
disguised unless her memory of him was interrupted and puzzled before she
grew older, and that she as well as the world must be made to believe
Bartley was her father, he assented, and it was two years before he
ventured to come near his own daughter.

But he demanded to see her at a distance, himself unseen, and this was
arranged. He provided himself with a powerful binocular of the kind that
is now used at sea, instead of the unwieldy old telescope, and the little
girl was paraded by the nurse, who was in the secret. She played about in
the sight of this strange spy. She was plump, she was rosy, she was full
of life and spirit. Joy filled the father's heart; but then came a bitter
pang to think that he had faded out of her joyous life; by-and-by he
could see her no longer, for a mist came from his heart to his eyes; he
bowed his head and went back to his business, his prosperity, and his
solitude. These experiments were repeated at times. Moreover, Bartley had
the tact never to write to him on business without telling him something
about his girl, her clever sayings, her pretty ways, her quickness at
learning from all her teachers, and so on. When she was eight years old a
foreign agent was required in Bartley's business, and Hope agreed to
start this agency and keep it going till some more ordinary person could
be intrusted to work it.

But he refused to leave England without seeing his daughter with his