"Thank you," said Nansie, and walked out of the office, and set her face towards the caravan.
The female clerk looked after her sympathizingly. There was a love note in her voice, and the post-office girl had a little sweethearting of her own on hand.
[CHAPTER II.]
Nansie walked on, turning the letter in her hand, and glancing at it occasionally. The writing was strange to her, and on the envelope was the London post-mark. When, at the end of twenty minutes, she stood by her father's side, he was asleep.
"Father!" she said, bending over him.
He opened his eyes instantly, and smiled at her.
"Ah, Nansie, it is you. I drop off constantly now, on the smallest provocation from silence or solitude. But it can scarcely be called sleep; I am conscious of all that is going on around me." He observed the letter in her hand, and he said, eagerly, "You have one!" and took it from her. "Yes, it is from my brother Joseph; I was beginning to fear that he was dead."
He opened the letter and read it, and then remained a little while in thought. Presently he resumed the conversation.
"You saw your uncle once, Nansie. Have you a recollection of him?"
"Hardly any, father. How old could I have been when mother took me to see him? Not more than four or five, I think. I had a white dress and a blue sash, and I took him a bunch of flowers. He gave me some sweetmeats, I remember, and a shilling. But I have no recollection of his face. He lived in London, in a street off Whitechapel; that I know."