my little girl?" The man completed the sentence for her, by explaining that she knew herself to be dying, and wanted me to take charge of Binnahan, their only child. I said at once that I would do so, feeling inwardly certain of my husband's consent, but she seemed at first almost afraid to believe me; and the man tried to reassure her, by saying in the native language, that I "was not telling lies." However, I did not leave her until I had tranquillized her mind with the repeated assurance that in case of her death her little daughter should live with us.
Now it so happened that at the clerical meeting, amongst other subjects of discussion, the duties of Government chaplains towards the natives had occupied much attention, and my husband, amongst others of the clergy, had expressed an opinion that the natives were sadly neglected, and ought to be so no longer. Poor Kitty's request, which I communicated to him on his return, was a speedier test of sincerity than he had anticipated, although it was one from which he had no thought of flinching; he therefore went immediately to the riverside, and telling her he was come to hear her wishes that he might endeavour to fulfil them, she just gasped out the words, "Take Binnahan—make good." She lingered a day or two longer, but on the following morning a little girl, whose only clothing was a small piece of cotton print pinned round her, peeped timidly and without speaking into the room where I was sitting, to let me know that she had arrived.
She was a very slight little creature, with the thin limbs of her wild race, in fact the natives in general were
