I am here with a child, forced upon me I may say, but still as dear to me as if she were mine own.

You must be aware that I have nothing but my pension and half-pay to subsist upon.

I can save nothing.

My health is undermined and my life precarious.

Last winter I never expected to quit my bed again; and, as I lay in it, the thought naturally occurred of the forlorn and helpless state in which this poor little girl would be in case of my decease.