Her name was
Felicia--Felicia Rose Derwent Stanhope in full. Her uncle and guardian,
Sir John Derwent, came down and fetched her home, with the bodies of her
father and mother. I have told you that Dick was just then waiting for
his commission, which, by the way, his family could poorly afford to
purchase. Well, in recognition of his 'gallantry' (as the old gentleman
was good enough to term it) Sir John, who possessed a good deal of
influence, had him gazetted within six weeks, and to the 2-th Regiment--
'for which,' so ran the gracious letter bringing the news, 'you have
performed the first of what I hope will be a long list of distinguished
services.'
"Pretty, was it not? Yes, but there's prettier to come. Felicia, who
was an only child and quite an heiress in a small way, kept up from the
first a steady correspondence with her 'preserver': childish letters, to
begin with, but Dick kept them all. In Bombay, in Abyssinia, for a few
weeks in England (when he saw her for the first time since the wreck),
then back in India again, he has told me since that the world held but
one woman for him, and that was the little girl growing up to womanhood
in her Bedfordshire home.
"Well it all happened as you are guessing. Dick, who had inherited a
little money by this time, and was expecting his majority, returned to
England in '72 on a long furlough.
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