Dick, who had now attained the rank of captain, had been introduced by one of Lord Cornwallis's old staff officers to General Harris, who, as general of the Madras army, was in command of the whole. On hearing of the services Dick had rendered in the last war, and that his perfect acquaintance with the language, and with the ground over which the army would pass, would enable him to be equally efficient on the present occasion, General Harris at once detached him from service with the regiment, and appointed him to a post on his own staff. Had it not been that Dick had seen, for the last two years, that hostilities must ere long be commenced with Tippoo; he would, before this, have left the army and returned home. He was heartily tired of the long inaction. When the regiment was stationed at Madras, life was very pleasant; but a considerable portion of his time was spent at out stations, where the duties were very light, and there was nothing to break the monotony of camp life. He received letters regularly from his mother, who gave him full details of their home life. The first that he received merely announced their safe arrival in England. The second was longer and more interesting. They had had no difficulty in discovering the address of Annie's father, and on writing to him, he had immediately come up to town. He had lost his wife, on his voyage home from India, and was overjoyed at the discovery of his daughter, and at her return to England. "He is," Dick's mother wrote, "very much broken in health. Annie behaved very nicely. Poor child, it was only natural that, after what you did for her, and our being all that time with her, the thought of leaving us for her parent, of whom she had no recollection, was a great grief. However, I talked it over with her, many times, and pointed out to her that her first duty was to the father who had been so many years deprived of her, and that, although there was no reason why she should not manifest affection for us, she must not allow him to think, for a moment, that she was not as pleased to see him as he was to welcome her. She behaved beautifully when her father arrived, and when he had been in the house five minutes, and spoke of the death of his wife, his bitter regret that she had not lived to see Annie restored to them, the loneliness of his life and how it would be brightened now that she was again with him, his words so touched her that she threw herself into his arms, and sobbed out that she would do all she could to make his life happy. He had, of course, received the letter we had written to him from Tripataly, and quite pained me by the gratitude he showed for what he called my kindness to his daughter.