"Nor for me, I am sure," said the Captain, when the servant entered and confuted him--for the letter was for him. He took it up wonderingly and suspiciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or as (if naturalists) we take up an unknown creature, that we are not quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland! for you start and change colour--you suppress a cry as you break the seal--you breathe hard as you read--and the letter seems short--but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up--crumple it--thrust it into your breast pocket--and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and there is a smile on that iron lip. My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and his hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast, though the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the tropics. "You are not going out, uncle?" "Yes, yes." "But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you?" "No, sir; no. Blanche, come here." He took the child in his arms, surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. "You have never given me pain, Blanche: say, 'God bless and prosper you, father!'" "God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!" said Blanche, putting her little hands together, as if in prayer. "There--that should bring me luck, Blanche," said the Captain, gaily, and setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz. "God prosper thee, too!" said I, involuntarily. And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way, (and her pretty ways were many), "I wish you would come with us, cousin Sisty, and help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us both--he wants all the love we can give him!" "That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that we don't all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower of his, at the world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May--from May to November;--to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than any creature in the Fables I gave you the other day." Blanche laughed and clapped her hands--"Oh, that would be so nice! but,"--and she stopped gravely, and added, "but then, you see, there would not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower must love him very much, for he loves it dearly." It was my turn to laugh now. "I see how it is, you little witch," said I; "you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls! With all my heart, so far as I am concerned."