"He is," Dick's mother wrote, "very much broken in health. Annie
behaved very nicely. Poor child, it was only natural that, after what
you did for her, and our being all that time with her, the thought of
leaving us for her parent, of whom she had no recollection, was a
great grief. However, I talked it over with her, many times, and
pointed out to her that her first duty was to the father who had been
so many years deprived of her, and that, although there was no reason
why she should not manifest affection for us, she must not allow him
to think, for a moment, that she was not as pleased to see him as he
was to welcome her. She behaved beautifully when her father arrived,
and when he had been in the house five minutes, and spoke of the death
of his wife, his bitter regret that she had not lived to see Annie
restored to them, the loneliness of his life and how it would be
brightened now that she was again with him, his words so touched her
that she threw herself into his arms, and sobbed out that she would do
all she could to make his life happy. He had, of course, received the
letter we had written to him from Tripataly, and quite pained me by
the gratitude he showed for what he called my kindness to his
daughter.
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