"Well, not for a month or two, certainly, my dear. But I shall set about making the needful preparations at once, and you had better do the same." Saying which, the gentleman left the room to commence the reply to his cousin's letter.
[CHAPTER X.]
"BLESSED ARE THE MEEK."
"HERE is a letter—a letter from India, I do believe!" exclaimed Milly one morning, as she came into the breakfast room, and took up the thin light letter, with its strange foreign postmarks.
She was all impatience for the doctor to make his appearance now. And when she heard him descending the stairs, she ran to meet him with it in her hand.
"A letter!—A letter!" she shouted, dancing through the hall. "A letter from India, I'm sure."
The doctor took it from her hand, and looked at it with eagerness.
"It is from Edgar," he exclaimed, as he reached the breakfast room; "he lives, then!" And overpowered with emotion, he sunk into a chair and covered his face with his hands.
After a short time, he recovered himself sufficiently to read his letter, but that part of it in which was communicated the loss of their little girl when on her way to England with her nurse, affected him even more deeply than the knowledge that his cousin was still living had done.
He started as he read the name "Milly," and glanced across the table to the little girl now sitting before him. Could it be possible that she was his cousin's child? He had learned to look upon her and love her as his own, and now to think of another claiming her as a parent, claiming the first place in her affections, caused him a sharp thrill of pain.