home for education, the little girl had spent her life, from her
seventh to her sixteenth year, as absolutely one with her cousins,
until she was summoned to meet her father at the Cape, under the
escort of his old friend, General Sir Stephen Temple. She found
Colonel Curtis sinking under fatal disease, and while his relations
were preparing to receive, almost to maintain, his widow and
daughter, they were electrified by the tidings that the gentle little
Fanny, at sixteen, had become the wife of Sir Stephen Temple, at
sixty.

From that time little had been known about her; her mother had
continued with her, but the two Mrs. Curtises had never been
congenial or intimate; and Fanny was never a full nor willing
correspondent, feeling perhaps the difficulty of writing under
changed circumstances. Her husband had been in various commands in
the colonies, without returning to England; and all that was known of
her was a general impression that she had much ill-health and
numerous children, and was tended like an infant by her bustling
mother and doting husband. More than half a year back, tidings had
come of the almost sudden death of her mother; and about three months
subsequently, one of the officers of Sir Stephen's staff had written
to announce that the good old general had been killed by a fall from
his horse, while on a round of inspection at a distance from home.
The widow was then completely prostrated by the shock, but promised
to write as soon as she was able, and this was the fulfilment of that
promise, bringing the assurance that Fanny was coming back with her
little ones to the home of her childhood.

Of that home, Grace and Rachel were the joint-heiresses, though it
was owned by the mother for her life. It was an estate of farm and