Alack! the brothers never did meet again, in this world which both took
so hardly. But for Willy a transformation scene was near. After two
years in India, his gift and his character had made their mark. He had
not only been dreaming of New Zealand; besides his daily routine, he had
been working hard at Indian languages and history. The Lawrences, both
John and Henry, had found him out, and realized his quality. It was at
Sir Henry Lawrence's house in the spring of 1850 that he met Miss Fanny
Hodgson, daughter of the distinguished soldier and explorer, General
Hodgson, discoverer of the sources of the Ganges, and at that time the
Indian Surveyor-General. The soldier of twenty-three fell instantly in
love, and tumult and despondency melted away. The next letter to New
Zealand is pitched in quite another key. He still judges Indian life and
Indian government with a very critical eye. "The Alpha and Omega of the
whole evil in Indian Society" is "the regarding India as a rupee-mine,
instead of a Colony, and ourselves as Fortune-hunters and
Pension-earners rather than as emigrants and missionaries." And outside
his domestic life his prospects are still uncertain. But with every mail
one can see the strained spirit relaxing, yielding to the spell of love
and to the honorable interests of an opening life.

"To-day, my Thomas [October 2, 1850], I sit, a married man in the Bengal
army, writing to a brother, it may be a married man, in Van Diemen's
Land." (Rumors of Tom's courtship of Julia Sorell had evidently just
reached him.) He goes on to describe his married home at Hoshyarpore,
and his work at Indian languages. He has been reading Carlyle's
_Cromwell_, and marveling at the "rapid rush of thought which seems more
and more to be engrossing people in England!" "In India you will easily
believe that the torpor is still unbroken." (The Mutiny was only seven
short years ahead!) And he is still conscious of the "many weights which