months later Carlisle writes, "I never thought your attachment
extraordinary. I might, for your sake, have wished it less in the
degree; but what I did think extraordinary was that you would never
permit what was most likely to happen ever to make its appearance in
your perspective. March speaks with great tenderness and real
compassion for your sufferings. Have you been at Lady Holland's? Are
you in my house? Do not stay too long at Frognal; change the scene;
it will do you good. Gratify every caprice of that sort, and write
to me everything that comes into your head. You cannot unload your
heart to any one who will receive its weight more cheerfully than I
shall do."

But next year we hear of Selwyn at Milan negotiating with Mie Mie's
relatives for her return. His proposals to make settlements on her
met with alternate rebuffs and promises that kept him in a state of
intermingled fear and hope. He was finally put off with the
understanding that she should return to him in the spring; and in
October he turned homeward.

In the spring it was arranged that the Marchesa Fagniani should
bring Mie Mie to Paris to be left a few weeks in a convent before
Selwyn should claim her. The meeting did not take place without a
last trial of patience for him. He arrived in Paris in April,
expecting to find the little traveller, but he was informed that the
departure from Milan had been delayed for a few days; this was
followed by the news of a change of plans, and that Selwyn must go
to Lyons to meet the child, who would be conducted there by her
mother--a meeting Selwyn had wished to avert. Eventually, early in
May, we read the congratulations of his friends on the restoration
of what had become dearest to him in the world.