"It was very pleasant," he added. "I was a good deal interested in Anthony Drayton. But this is something quite different. Can you recall that I had a letter from the East Indies the morning the word came from Cousin Giles?" "Why, yes!" Elizabeth started in surprise. "I had really forgotten about it. Business, I suppose, with Anthony Leverett. Why, I think it is high time he came home." Chilian sighed. "I am afraid--though I cannot see why we should fear so much to enter the other portal, since it is the destiny of all, and we believe in a better world. He was hopelessly ill when he wrote and was winding up some business matters. He is a brave man to meet death so composedly. The only pang is parting from his child." "Oh, his little girl! Let me see--she must be eight or nine years old. What will become of her?" "He makes me executor and guardian of the child. She was to start three weeks after his letter with Captain Corwin in the _Flying Star_. That will be due, if it meets with no mishap, from the middle to the last of April." "But she doesn't come alone!" ejaculated Elizabeth in surprise. "Yes. He wishes to be buried there beside his wife. And he does not want her to have the remembrance of his death. So he sends her with the woman who has been her nurse and maid the last three years, an Englishwoman." "Of all things! I wonder what will come next! We seem in the line of surprises. And it's queer they should happen together. A little girl! Chilian, do _you_ like it? Why, it will fairly turn the house upside down!" There was an accent of protest in Elizabeth's tone, showing plainly her unwillingness to accept the situation. "One little girl can't move much furniture about;" with a sound of humor in his voice. "Oh, you know what I mean--not actually dragging sofas and tables about, but she will chairs, as you'll see. And lots of other things. Look at the Rendall children. The house always looks as if it had been stirred up with the pudding-stick, and Sally Rendall spends good half her time looking for things they have carted off. Tom and Anstice were digging up the path the day we called, and what do you suppose they had! The tablespoons. And I'll venture to say they were left out of doors." "There are so many of them," Chilian said, as if in apology. "And I don't see how we can keep this child away from them. It isn't as if they were low-down people. Sally's father having been a major in the war, and the Rendalls are good stock. Let me see--what's her name? Her mother was called Letty." "Cynthia. She was named for my mother." Chilian's voice had a reverent softness in it. "I always thought it a pretty name," said Eunice. "And I've heard people call it 'Cyn.' I do abominate nicknames." Elizabeth uttered this with a good deal of vigor. Then she remembered she quite liked Bessy.