CHAPTER V.
MARY'S PERIL.
Whilst Mr.Bartley's business was improving under Hope's management, Hope himself was groaning under his entire separation from his daughter.
Bartley had promised him this should not be; but among Hope's good qualities was a singular fidelity to his employers, and he was also a man who never broke his word.

So when Bartley showed him that the true parentage of Grace Hope--now called Mary Bartley--could never be disguised unless her memory of him was interrupted and puzzled before she grew older, and that she as well as the world must be made to believe Bartley was her father, he assented, and it was two years before he ventured to come near his own daughter.
But he demanded to see her at a distance, himself unseen, and this was arranged.

He provided himself with a powerful binocular of the kind that is now used at sea, instead of the unwieldy old telescope, and the little girl was paraded by the nurse, who was in the secret.

She played about in the sight of this strange spy.

She was plump, she was rosy, she was full of life and spirit.