"Oh, no, it is not fancy; I never loved any one as I do you--except papa--my own darling, good papa!" the word was almost choked with sobs. "He used to fondle me and praise me, and call me his darling Ellen, as uncle Hamilton did Emmeline last Sunday; and when I was ill, so ill they said I should die, he never left me, except when his military duties called him away; and he used to nurse me, and try to amuse me, that I might forget pain and weakness. Oh, I shall never, never forget that dreadful night!" and she closed her eyes and shuddered, as the horrid scene of blood and death flashed before her. "What dreadful night my poor child?" inquired Mrs. Hamilton, soothingly, after doubting whether or not it would be better for Ellen to pursue such an evidently painful theme, and no longer requiring an explanation of her emotion the previous Sabbath. "The night poor papa was killed;--oh, there were so many horrid forms on the grass, the natives and poor papa's own men, and they looked so ghastly in the moonlight, and the grass was covered with blood and limbs and heads that had been shot off; and there were such cries and groans of pain--I see it, I hear it all again so often before I go to sleep, and when my head feels as it does to-day, and fancy I hear poor papa's last words and feel his kiss as he lay bleeding, bleeding slowly to death and his voice was so strange, and his lips so cold!" "But how came you in such a dreadful scene, my poor Ellen? who could have permitted such a little child to be there?"