e wondered if the
Lord Jesus would let such a thing be.

"But I couldn't leave Tony," cried old Oliver, suddenly; and putting on
his spectacles to look for him.

"Come here, Tony. He's like my own son to me, bless him! He calls me
grandfather, and kept my heart up when I should have sunk very low
without him. My Master gave him to me the very same night he gave me my
little love. No, no; Dolly loved Tony, and Susan must come here to see
me, but I could never leave my boy."

Old Oliver had put his arm round Tony, drawing him closer and closer to
him as he spoke, until his withered cheek pressed fondly against his
face. Since Dolly died neither of them had felt such a thrill of
happiness as now.

"The colonel and his lady must be told about this," said Raleigh, after
he had heard all that Tony had been and done for old Oliver; and when he
was obliged to go away for the night, the soldier gave him such a cordial
grasp of the hand, as set all his fingers tingling, and his heart
throbbing with exultation.

CHAPTER XXI.

POLLY.

The lodge stood in a very lovely place, upon a slope of ground, which
rose still higher to where the colonel's grand house was situated. There
was a porch before the door, built of rough logs of pines, covered with
ivy and honeysuckle, and with seats in it, where you could sit and look
out over a wide, rich plain, with little hills and dales in it,
stretching far away towards the sky-line, where some distant mountains
lay, so like to clouds, that you could scarcely tell which were soft and
misty vapours, and which were solid and everlasting hills. The Severn ran
through the beautiful plain with so many windings, sometimes lying in
shadow under deep banks, and sometimes glistening and sparkling in the
sunlight, that it looked more like many little pools scattered about the
meadows than one long, continuous river. Not very far away, as Raleigh
had said, stood the Wrekin, purple in the evening haze, but by day so
plain, that one could see the great rock on its summit, which in olden
times served as an altar to the god of fire.

Susan was very busy, and had been very busy all day over two
things--preparing the house for the reception of her father, whom she had
not seen for so many years, and in teaching her little girl, who was now
eighteen months old, to say grand-pa. The one work was quite finished;
everything was ready for old Oliver, and now she was waiting and watching
to see the