CHAPTER IX.

MAJOR FERRERS.

THE arrival of the European mail is always a welcome event at an East India station. Officers and soldiers look out as eagerly for letters from home as their wives do, and are as bitterly disappointed if they are overlooked in the general distribution, although they may not care to show it as much.

It was now just expected at Delhi, and Major Ferrers, with his wife, was eagerly looking through the half-closed lattices of the bungalow to watch for the well-known signal of its arrival.

"There, it's no use looking any longer," said the lady at length, in a fretful, petulant tone, throwing herself on a lounge. "It won't come any the sooner for our looking, and I dare say when it does come, there will be nothing for us."

"I hope there will. I am expecting a letter from the agent I have set to work in London."

"O don't, Frederick," interrupted the lady, "don't raise anticipations which are sure to be disappointed. I have given up all hope of any news about that."

The gentleman seated himself by his wife, and took her hand. "My dear Maria, I would not have told you this, but that I have a strong impression we shall soon hear some tidings of our lost darling," he said tenderly.

The lady looked up quickly. "You have hopes of hearing of her at last?" she said. "O my darling child, my darling little Milly, shall I ever see you again!" And as she spoke, she burst into a flood of tears.

Her husband did what he could to pacify her, but it was some time before she grew calm. "I must leave you now, dear," he said at length, pulling out his watch, "but I shall not be gone long."

His wife knew he was going to inquire about the mail, and she lay back upon the cushions to await, with what patience she could muster, his return with the letters.

Mrs. Ferrers was not very amiable at any time, and the climate of India is not calculated to improve an irritable temper, so that the woman-servant in immediate attendance upon the lady had her patience sorely tried that afternoon in her endeavors to satisfy all her whims. But the simmering heat continued, in spite of all the lady's fretfulness concerning it, a fretfulness that was increased just now by the thought that but for this unhealthy climate, she would not have been called upon to part with her only child, but she might now have had her with her, to pet and to spoil. Mrs. Ferrers did not say "spoil," but that is what it would have been had the child been left to her care.

Major Ferrers was gone some time, and when he came back, disappointment was plainly written on his face.

"Hasn't the mail come in?" asked the lady, rising from her recumbent posture.

"Yes, it has come in," answered her husband.

"And are there no letters for us?" said the lady, in a shrinking whisper.

"Yes, there is one, but not the one I expected." And as he spoke, he took the letter from his pocket, and threw himself into a chair.

"Who is this from?" asked the lady, taking up the letter, and looking at the address on the outside.

It was in a strange handwriting, and she felt curious as to its contents. "Who can this be from?" she repeated.

"I don't know, and don't care, much," returned her husband, testily. "I felt so sure of hearing from one of the passengers that sailed in the vessel with our darling, and, as that has not come, I don't care for anything else."

He took the letter from his wife's hand, however, as he spoke, and turned it over leisurely. "I must have seen this handwriting before, somewhere," he said; "it seems strangely familiar to me." And with a little more interest, he proceeded to break the seal.

"Who is it from?" asked the lady impatiently, when he was about half through the letter.

"Well, this is strange!" remarked the major, without noticing his wife's question. "I never expected to hear from him again."

"Who is your correspondent?" asked the lady again.

"A cousin, my dear," replied her husband, going on with his perusal of the letter.

When he had finished, he laid it upon the table near his wife's elbow. "You will not understand it, my dear, without some explanation," he said, "for you have never heard me speak of Mr. Mansfield."

"Mr. Mansfield!" repeated the lady. "Was not that the name of your uncle—the one you lived with when a boy?"

"Yes, my dear, and this letter is from his only son."

"I did not know he had a son," said the lady.

"Perhaps not," remarked her husband meditatively.

He was thinking of the last time he had seen his cousin—of that terrible parting, when he had provoked the hot temper of Frank Mansfield beyond endurance, and had by him been struck to the earth. He knew he had not been blameless in that quarrel himself, although he had often tried to believe that he was. He might have done so still; but the humble, penitent tone of his cousin's letter touched him more deeply than he cared to own, even to himself.

"And this cousin has written to you after all these years?" said the lady, finding her husband did not say any more.

"Yes, my dear."

And as he spoke, Major Ferrers took up the letter again and passed into his room, locking the door after him. He wanted to be alone, to think over the strange circumstance of his cousin writing to him—his proud, imperious cousin writing such a gentle, regretful letter. He read it over again, and as he read, a strange yearning to visit his native land came over him.

He had never been to England since he left it, years before, and he had resisted all his wife's importunities to return there. But now, as he sat in the little dim hot room—dim because of the noonday sun that must be so jealously excluded—a tide of recollections rushed to his memory. He thought of the pleasant breezes and cool green lanes of Old England, and pictured the springing corn and flowering hedgerows, until the longing to see them once more grew almost painful in its intensity. After an hour spent over his cousin's letter, and the emotions and recollections it had awakened, he returned to his wife.

"What do you say to my getting leave of absence to visit England?" he said abruptly.

The lady was half asleep, but she started up instantly on hearing these words. "O, Edgar, will you really go?" she said.

"I think I must try to do so," said her husband.

"And then we can make further inquiries about—about our darling Milly," said the lady, the tears welling up to her eyes as she spoke.

"Yes, my dear, we can, certainly; but we must not be too sanguine about the result. Even if a child was saved from the wreck, it might not be ours. And then some years have passed since, and so many things might happen in two or three years."

"Yes, many things," said the lady, meditatively; "but still I feel sure my child is living somewhere. O, I wonder where she can be?"

The major shook his head. He had often heard his wife express this same strong feeling; but his own faith in ever seeing his child again was well-nigh gone now. He had hoped, almost against hope, until the present time; but now that another mail had come in, bringing him no intelligence whatever, this hope had died out.

"I think I shall write to Mr. Mansfield at once," said Major Ferrers, after a few minutes silence.

"And you will tell him we are coming to England to search for our little girl?" said his wife.

"Yes, I think I must tell him all about it; for his letter is so different from anything I could ever have expected from him, that I feel bound to write as friendly as possible, and this will be something to tell him—something to write about."

"How soon can we leave India, do you think?" asked the lady, as her husband arose from his seat.

"Well, not for a month or two, certainly, my dear. But I shall set about making the needful preparations at once, and you had better do the same." Saying which, the gentleman left the room to commence the reply to his cousin's letter.