a husband's virtues, you must
marry a poor man. The regiment was under-officered as usual, and John
had to take parade at daylight quite three times a week; but he walked
up and down the veranda with Cecily constantly till two in the morning,
when a little coolness came. I usually lay awake the rest of the
night in fear that a scorpion would drop from the ceiling on her.
Nevertheless, we were of excellent mind towards Cecily; we were in such
terror, not so much of failing in our duty towards her as towards the
ideal standard of mankind. We were very anxious indeed not to come
short. To be found too small for one's place in nature would have been
odious. We would talk about her for an hour at a time, even when John's
charger was threatening glanders and I could see his mind perpetually
wandering to the stable. I would say to John that she had brought a new
element into our lives--she had indeed!--and John would reply, 'I know
what you mean,' and go on to prophesy that she would 'bind us together.'
We didn't need binding together; we were more to each other, there in
the desolation of that arid frontier outpost, than most husbands and
wives; but it seemed a proper and hopeful thing to believe, so we
believed it. Of course, the real experience would have come, we weren't
monsters; but fate curtailed the opportunity. She was just five
weeks old when the doctor told us that we must either pack her home
immediately or lose her, and the very next day John went down with
enteric. So Cecily was sent to England with a sergeant's wife who had
lost her twins, and I settled down under the direction of a native
doctor, to fight for my husband's life, without ice or proper food, or
sickroom comforts of any sort. Ah! Fort Samila, with the sun glaring up
from the sand!--however, it is a long time ago now. I trusted the baby
willingly to Mrs. Berry and to Providence, and did not fret; my capacity
for worry, I suppose, was completely absorbed. Mrs. Berry's letter,
describing the child's improvement on the voyage and safe arrival came,
I remember, the day on which John was allowed his first solid mouthful;
it had been a long siege. 'Poor little wretch!' he said when I read it
aloud; and after that Cecily became an episode.

She had gone to my husband's people; it was the best arrangement. We
were lucky that it was possible; so many children had to be sent to
strangers and hirelings. Since an unfortunate infant must be brought
into the worl