young widower's proposal that he should give up his bungalow in cantonments, and share the other's more comfortable house in the civil lines, spent almost as much time there as if he had been a permanent occupant of it. The subaltern had plenty of leisure; and his friend's servants were never sure during their master's long absence in court at what moment they might not receive a visit from Falkland, and even if they had been disposed to neglect the child would have been prevented by his vigilance. But indifference to their master's children is not a fault of Indian servants; their weakness is rather in the way of too much petting and indulgence. In the case of a baby, however, there was not much room for injudicious kindness; the little Olivia's wants were sufficiently ministered to by the stout young mussalmáni woman who had been engaged from a neighbouring village to fulfil the office of wet-nurse; and the young civil surgeon of the station. Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, declared in his daily visits that no child could be better cared for, or more thriving. As the little Olivia grew out of babyhood, almost the first person she came to recognize after her nurse and the old bearer who was appointed her special attendant, was the young officer; and the child would hold out her little arms to greet him as he came up the avenue of an evening while she was taking her walk in the old man's arms, attended by the nurse and another female, while a tall office-messenger with a red belt, brass plate, and gigantic umbrella brought up the rear. Long before she could understand the use of them, the self-appointed guardian began to pour in consignments of toys, which soon littered the young civilian's house; Benares lacquered bricks, little wooden elephants and camels, cups and saucers, and tea-equipages; a swing to be hung up in the veranda; with a rocking-horse as large as a Burmah pony. A visitor to Mr. Cunningham's house in those days of a morning would generally find the same group assembled there: the father in an easy-chair smoking his cheroot; his friend sitting more erect, as became a man with strict military ideas, and not smoking, — the two watching the child and the old bearer on the floor together, engaged in the joint task of erecting a tower, which, from the number of bricks strewed about the room, promised to assume the proportions of a very Babel.
Thus passed the child's earliest years, when just as she was beginning to prattle freely, and had been advanced to the dignity of a seat on a raised chair at her father's breakfast-table, a disruption took place of the small commonwealth which had conducted the government of the little Olivia's household. Falkland was appointed to the staff of the army on the frontier, and the good doctor was transferred to another station; while the advent of his successor was heralded by a reputation for his power of subduing the strongest constitutions of adults, and a perfectly ogre-like capacity for the massacre of children; such as escaped the first onslaught of his calomel, it was rumoured, invariably succumbed to the subsequent treatment. The arrival of this terrible official caused a general panic in the station. Mrs. Spangle, the wife of the brother civilian already referred to, determined to anticipate by a year or two the time fixed for the inevitable home-voyage; and Cunningham, thus left without his friends, accepted her offer to take his little daughter to England with her own children, to be made over on arrival to the charge of his only sister.
To Mrs. Maitland, Cunningham's sister, who had no children of her own, the arrival of her little niece was a very welcome event; she soon came to love the child as her own, and Olivia found in her house a happy home, where even the dimmest recollections of India soon faded away. Nor were the father's letters calculated to recall them. Cunningham did not possess the sort of literary power which alone could have enabled those unacquainted with the scenes among which it was spent to realize his mode of life; and, under the feeling that his letters had no real interest for the reader when they passed beyond mere personal topics, his correspondence, though still affectionate, gradually became brief and infrequent. His sister's letters were longer and more regular, for all home allusions could be understood by the parent, and full accounts of his daughter, her health, progress, and occupation, made up an interesting letter; and as soon as the child was able to write herself, each mail carried a letter from her to her unknown father, all to be carefully filed by the Indian exile, and containing a complete record of progress, beginning with the uncertain ink-tracings over her aunt's pencilled outlines, and so through the large round-hand and short stiff sentences of child-
