and I will write to her
to-night."

That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the
brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and
promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt
her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her
father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus:

"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry
heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you
will be my blessing.

"Your Loving Aunt Prue."

XV.

JEROMA.

"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_.

The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the
sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away
from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the
rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a
delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to
run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and
then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible,
misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or
furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs
into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and
never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had
been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along
the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning
that there was not any place for her papa to get well in.

He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that
she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at
him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his
eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out
upon the sea.

Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and
strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank
back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile
ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses.

"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a
quivering of the lip.

"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters
to-day that were too much for him."

"Then he shouldn't have letters," sa