Old Oliver set him to learn to read and write, and he was making rapid progress, more rapid than Dolly, who began at the same time, but who was apt to look upon it all as only another kind of game, of which she grew more quickly tired than of hide-and-seek.

There was no one to check her, or to make her understand it was real, serious work: neither old Oliver nor Tony could find any fault with their darling.

Now and then there came letters from her mother, full of anxious questions about her, and loving messages to her, telling her to be a good girl till she came back, but never saying a word as to when there was any chance of her returning to England.

In one of these letters she sent word that a little sister was come for her out in India, who was just like what Dolly herself had been when she was a baby; but neither Oliver nor Tony could quite believe that.

There never had been such a child as Dolly; there never would be again..