Caroline had a ride in her turn. When he took us out walking, Caroline
was always on the side next the wall. When we interrupted him over his
dirty work in the surgery, he used to tell me to go and play until
he was ready for me; but he would put down his bottles, and clean his
clumsy fingers on his coarse apron, and lead Caroline out again, as if
she had been the greatest lady in the land. Ah! how he loved her! and,
let me be honest and grateful, and add, how he loved me, too!

When I was eight years old and Caroline was twelve, I was separated from
home for some time. I had been ailing for many months previously; had
got benefit from being taken to the sea-side, and had shown symptoms of
relapsing on being brought home again to the midland county in which we
resided. After much consultation, it was at last resolved that I should
be sent to live, until my constitution got stronger, with a maiden
sister of my mother's, who had a house at a watering-place on the south
coast.

I left home, I remember, loaded with presents, rejoicing over the
prospect of looking at the sea again, as careless of the future and as
happy in the present as any boy could be. Uncle George petitioned for a
holiday to take me to the seaside, but he could not be spared from
the surgery. He consoled himself and me by promising to make me a
magnificent model of a ship.

I have that model before my eyes now while I write. It is dusty with
age; the paint on it is cracked; the ropes are tangled; the sails are
moth-eaten and yellow. The hull is all out of proportion, and the rig
has been smiled at by every nautical friend of mine who has ever looked
at it. Yet, worn-out and faulty as it is--inferior to the cheapest
miniature vessel nowadays in any toy-shop window--I hardly know a
possession of mine in this world that I would not sooner part with than
Uncle George's ship.

My life at the sea-side was a very happy one. I remained with my aunt
more than a year. My mother often came to see how I was going on, and
at first always brought my sister with her; but during the last eight
months of my stay Caroline never once appeared. I noticed also, at the
same period, a change in my mother's manner. She looked paler and more
anxious at each succeeding visit, and always had long conferences in
private with my aunt. At last she ceased to come and see us altogether,
and only wrote to know how my health was getting on. My father, too,
who had at the earlier per