“He did tell me that!  I may have passed over something else; you might better see the letter.”

“No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me—­I could not bear it to-night.  John, I feel as if it would kill me.  It is so long ago—­I thought I was stronger—­O, John,” she leaned her head upon his arm and sobbed convulsively like a little child.

He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, and for a long time no words were spoken.

“Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little girl—­her mother named her Jeroma.”

“I will take that,” she said, lifting her head, “and I will write to her to-night.”

That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her father’s sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus: 

“You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry heart.  I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you will be my blessing.

“Your Loving Aunt Prue.”

XV.

JEROMA.

“Whom hast them pitied?  And whom forgiven I”—­Wills.

The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to run every now and then back to her father’s chair on the veranda, and then she would dance back again and stand and watch them—­the horrible, misshapen monsters—­as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs into the sea.  She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight.  Not that this sight had been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along the coast to rest in, or grow strong in.  Nurse had told her that morning that there was not any place for her papa to get well in.

He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sea.  He often sat for hours and hours looking out upon the sea.

Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank back into weakness and apathy.  He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses.