am to
Calcutta. Never before had the packing, to which she was so well
accustomed, been so bitter a task to the Captain's wife.

It was at the darkest hour of this gloomy time that the Captain came
in, waving above his head a letter which changed all their plans.

Now close by the old home of the Captain's wife there had lived a man,
much older than herself, who yet had loved her with a devotion as
great as that of the young Captain. She never knew it, for when he
saw that she had given her heart to his younger rival, he kept
silence, and he never asked for what he knew he might have had--the
old man's authority in his favour. So generous was the affection which
he could never conquer, that he constantly tried to reconcile the
father to his children whilst he lived, and, when he died, he
bequeathed his house and small estate to the woman he had loved.

"It will be a legacy of peace," he thought, on his death-bed. "The old
man cannot hold out when she and her children are constantly in sight.
And it may please GOD that I shall know of the reunion I have not been
permitted to see with my eyes."

And thus it came about that the Captain's regiment went to India
without him, and that the Captain's wife and her father lived on
opposite sides of the same road.

MASTER ROBERT.

The eldest of the Captain's children was a boy. He was named Robert,
after his grandfather, and seemed to have inherited a good deal of the
old gentleman's character, mixed with gentler traits. He was a fair,
fine boy, tall and stout for his age, with the Captain's regular
features, and (he flattered himself) the Captain's firm step and
martial bearing. He was apt--like his grandfather--to hold his own
will to be other people's law, and (happily for the peace of the
nursery) this opinion was devoutly shared by his brother Nicholas.
Though the Captain had sold his commission, Robin continued to command
an irregular force of volunteers in the nursery, and never was colonel
more despotic. His brothers and sister were by turn infantry, cavalry,
engineers, and artillery, according to his whim, and when his
affections finally settled upon the Highlanders of "The Black Watch,"
no female power could compel him to keep his stockings above his
knees, or his knickerbockers below them.

The Captain alone was a match for his strong-willed son.

"If you please, sir," said Sarah, one morning, flouncing in upon the
Captain, just as he was about to start for