It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into
the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and
albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers
for her to send to them--a very improving letter, but a good deal like
a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my
little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her
aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins
here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and much
interested about you; indeed, they wish I had brought you with me.'
Dolores read her letter over and over and over, for the pleasure of
having something all to herself, and never communicated a word about
the miscroscopic monsters her father had described, but she drew her
head back and reflected, 'He little knows,' when he spoke of her being
happy among her cousins.
Lady Merrifield likewise received a letter, about which she did not say
much to her children, but Miss Mohun, who had had a much longer one,
came over for the day to read this to her sister. In point of fact,
she had paired in childhood with her brother Maurice. She had been his
correspondent in school and college days, and being a person never
easily rebuffed, she had kept up more intercourse with him and his wife
than any others of the family had done, and he had preserved the habit
of writing to her much more freely and unreservedly than to any one
else.
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