helpless, fainting, and hysterical, and, in short, been the Providence
of the household. Then father would look at her, and say, 'My Mary
again!' and he would take her home, and talk to her with the free
confidence he had shown her mother, and would be comforted.

This was the hope that had carried her through the last parting, when
she went on board with her uncle and saw her father's cabin, and looked
with a dull kind of entertainment at all the curious arrangements of
the big ship. It seemed more like sight-seeing than good-bye, when at
last they were sent on shore, and hurried up to the station just in
time for the train.

Uncle William was a very unapproachable person. He did not profess to
understand little girls. He looked at Dolores rather anxiously, afraid,
perhaps, that she was crying, and put her into the carriage, then
rushed out and brought back a handful of newspapers, giving her the
Graphic, and hiding himself in the Times.

She felt too dull and stunned to read, or to look at the pictures,
though she held the paper in her hands, and she gazed out dreamily at
the Ton's and rocks and woody ravines of Dartmoor as they flew past
her, the leaves and ferns all golden brown with autumn colouring. She
had had little sleep that night; her little legs had all the morning
been keeping up with the two men's hasty steps, and though an excellent
meal had been set before her in the ship, she had not been able to
swallow much, and she was a good deal worn out. So when at last they
reached Exeter, and finding there would be two hours to wait, her uncle
asked whether she would come down into the town with him and see the
Cathedral, she much preferred to stay where she was. He put her under
the care of the woman in the waiting-room, who gave her some tea, took