unes; for
all the lost fortune had come back to her, and a great deal had even
been added to it. It was Mr. Carrisford who had been her father's
friend, and who had made the investments which had caused him the
apparent loss of his money; but it had so happened that after poor young
Captain Crewe's death one of the investments which had seemed at the
time the very worst had taken a sudden turn, and proved to be such a
success that it had been a mine of wealth, and had more than doubled the
Captain's lost fortune, as well as making a fortune for Mr. Carrisford
himself. But Mr. Carrisford had been very unhappy. He had truly loved
his poor, handsome, generous young friend, and the knowledge that he had
caused his death had weighed upon him always, and broken both his health
and spirit. The worst of it had been that, when first he thought himself
and Captain Crewe ruined, he had lost courage and gone away because he
was not brave enough to face the consequences of what he had done, and
so he had not even known where the young soldier's little girl had been
placed. When he wanted to find her, and make restitution, he could
discover no trace of her; and the certainty that she was poor and
friendless somewhere had made him more miserable than ever. When he had
taken the house next to Miss Minchin's he had been so ill and wretched
that he had for the time given up the search. His troubles and the
Indian climate had brought him almost to death's door--indeed, he had
not expected to live more than a few months. And then one day the Lascar
had told him about Sara's speaking Hindustani, and gradually he had
begun to take a sort of interest in the forlorn child, though he had
only caught a glimpse of her once or twice and he had not connected her
with the child of his friend, perhaps because he was too languid to
think much about anything. But the Lascar had found out something of
Sara's unhappy little life, and about the garret. One evening he had
actually crept out of his own garret-window and looked into hers, which
was a very easy matter, because, as I have said, it was only a few feet
away--and he had told his master what he had seen, and in a moment of
compassion the Indian Gentleman had told him to take into the wretched
little room such comforts as he could carry from the one window to the
other. And the Lascar, who had developed an interest in, and an odd
fondness for, the child who had spoken to him in his own tongue, had
b