Is sad and hard to bear."—-Scott.


"Mother, you could do a great kindness."

"Well, Joe?"

"If you would have the little teacher at the Miss Heath's here for
the holidays. After all the rest, she has had the measles last and
worst, and they don't know what to do with her, for she came from the
asylum for officers' daughters, and has no home at all, and they must
go away to have the house purified. They can't take her with them,
for their sister has children, and she will have to roam from room to
room before the whitewashers, which is not what I should wish in the
critical state of chest left by measles."

"What is her name?"

"Allen. The cry was always for Miss Allen when the sick girls wanted
to be amused."

"Allen! I wonder if it can be the same child as the one Robert was
interested about. You don't remember, my dear. It was the year you
were at Vienna, when one of Robert's brother-officers died on the
voyage out to China, and he sent home urgent letters for me to
canvass right and left for the orphan's election. You know Robert
writes much better than he speaks, and I copied over and over again
his account of the poor young man to go with the cards. 'Caroline
Otway Allen, aged seven years, whole orphan, daughter of Captain
Allen, l07th Regiment;' yes, that's the way it ran."