her. I'll
give you three pounds to send him from here, and we'll send more from
Calcutta.' So they overpersuaded me, and there isn't even time to come
back to London, for we are going in a few hours. You'll take care of my
little dear, I know, you and aunt Charlotte. I've sent a little box of
clothes for her by the railway, and what more she wants aunt Charlotte
will see to, I'm sure, and do her mending, and see to her manners till I
come home. Oh! if I could only hear you say 'Susan, my dear, I forgive
you, and love you almost as much as ever,' I'd go with a lighter heart,
and be almost glad to leave Dolly to be a comfort to you. She will be a
comfort to you, though she is so little, I'm sure. Tell her mammy says
she must be a good girl always till mammy comes back. A hundred thousand
kisses for my dear father and my little girl. We shall come home as soon
as ever we can; but I don't rightly know where India is. I think it's my
bounden duty to go with him, as things have turned out. Pray God take
care of us all.

"Your loving, sorrowful daughter,

"SUSAN RALEIGH."

CHAPTER VI.

THE GRASSHOPPER A BURDEN.

It was some time before the full meaning of Susan's letter penetrated
to her father's brain; but when it did, he was not at first altogether
pained by it. True, it was both a grief and disappointment to think
that his daughter, instead of returning to him, was already on her way
across the sea to a very distant land. But as this came slowly to his
mind, there came also the thought that there would now be no one to
divide with him the treasure committed to his charge. The little child
would belong to him alone. They might go on still, living as they had
done these last three days, and being all in all to one another. If he
could have chosen, his will would certainly have been for Susan to
return to them; but, since he could not have his choice, he felt that
there were some things which would be all the happier for him because
of her absence.

He put Dolly to bed, and then went out to shut up the shop for the night.
As he carried in his feeble arms a single shutter at a time, he heard
himself hailed by a boy's voice, which was lowered to a low and
mysterious whisper, and which belonged to Tony, who took the shutter out
of his hands.

"S'pose the mother turned up all right?" he said, pointing with his thumb
through the half open door.

"No," answered Oliver. "I've had another letter from her, and she's