"I remember even now with gratitude how good the Stanforths were to me. Minnie had a little bed placed beside hers, and would often wake up in the middle of the night to soothe and comfort me, when I started from some dream in a paroxysm of childish terror and grief. Young as I was I so fretted and pined after my mother, that if we had stayed longer in Paris I should have been ill; but, as soon as the funeral was over, we started for England. "Uncle Rolf had been prevented, by an attack of gout, coming to the funeral, but he wrote to Mrs. Stanforth giving her full instructions, and promised that if possible he would meet us at Dover. "It was early one November morning, as I lay listlessly in my berth, that I was aroused by the noise overhead. Was the brief voyage over, I wondered; had we reached England so soon? and, weak as I was, I crawled on deck, full of languid curiosity, to see my father's country. But the first glimpse disappointed me--a leaden sea, white chalky cliffs, and a gray sky, with black ugly-looking buildings and ships looming out of a damp mist; this was all I could see of Old England. And I was turning away disconsolately when Mrs. Stanforth came up to me with a tall gentleman with a kind, brown, wrinkled face and a gray mustache. "'Here is your little niece, Colonel Ferrers,' I heard her say in her pleasant clipping voice; 'poor little dear, she has fretted herself almost to death for her mother.' Then as I hung back, rather shyly, I felt myself lifted in my uncle's arms. "'Little Crystal,' he said, gently, and I thought I felt a tear on my face as he kissed me, 'my poor Edmund's child.' And then, stroking my hair, 'But you shall come home with me and be my dear little daughter;' and then, as the kind hand fondled me, I crept nearer and hid my face in his coat. Dear Uncle Rolf, I loved him from that moment. The rest of the day seemed like a dream. "We were speeding through a strange unknown country, past fields and hedge-rows, and stretches of smooth uplands, ugly plowed lands and patches of gray sullen gloom that resembled the sea. "Now I was gazing out blankly at the dreary landscape, and now nodding drowsily on my uncle's shoulder, till all at once we stopped under some dark trees, and a voice very close to me said, 'Let me lift her out, father.' And then some one carried me into a sudden blaze of light; and all at once I found myself in a large pleasant room with some sweet-smelling wood burning on the hearth, and a girl with dead-brown curls sewing at a little table with a white china lamp on it. "The strong arms that had carried me in and put me on the sofa, and were now bungling over the fastenings of my heavy cloak, belonged to a tall youth with a pleasant face, that somehow attracted me. "'Come and help me, Maggie,' he said, laughing, and then the fair, mild face of Margaret bent over me.