“It would be a very kind thing in you, and very
good for her, but you must be prepared for rather
a gay young lady.”
“Oh, but she would not mind my not going out.
She would have Alick, you know, and all the boys
to amuse her; but, if you think it would be tiresome
for her, and that she would not be happy, I should
be very sorry to have her, poor child.”
“I was not afraid for her,” said Colonel
Keith, smiling, “but of her being rather too
much for you.”
“Rachel is not too much for me,” said
Fanny, “and she and Grace will entertain Bessie,
and take her out. But I will talk to Alick.
He spoke of coming to-morrow. And don’t
you think I might ask Colonel and Mrs. Hammond to
spend a day? They would so like the sea for the
children.”
“Certainly.”
“Then perhaps you would write—oh,
I forgot,” colouring up, “I never can
forget the old days, it seems as if you were on the
staff still.”
“I always am on yours, and always hope to be,”
he said, smiling, “though I am afraid I can’t
write your note to the Hammonds for you.”
“But you won’t go away,” she said.
“I know your time will be taken up, and you
must not let me or the boys be troublesome; but to
have you here makes me so much less lost and lonely.
And I shall have such a friend in your Erminia.
Is that her name?”
“Ermine, an old Welsh name, the softest I ever
heard. Indeed it is dressing time,” added
Colonel Keith, and both moved away with the startled
precision of members of a punctual military household,
still feeling themselves accountable to somebody.
ERMINE’S RESOLUTION
“For as his hand the weather steers,
So thrive I best ’twixt joys and
tears,
And all the year have some green ears.”—H.
Vaughan.
Alison had not been wrong in her presentiment that
the second interview would be more trying than the
first. The exceeding brightness and animation
of Ermine’s countenance, her speaking eyes,
unchanged complexion, and lively manner—above
all, the restoration of her real substantial self—had
so sufficed and engrossed Colin Keith in the gladness
of their first meeting that he had failed to comprehend
her helpless state; and already knowing her to be an
invalid, not entirely recovered from her accident,
he was only agreeably surprised to see the beauty
of face he had loved so long, retaining all its vivacity
of expression. And when he met Alison the next
morning with a cordial brotherly greeting and inquiry
for her sister, her “Very well,” and “not
at all the worse for the excitement,” were so
hearty and ready that he could not have guessed that
“well” with Ermine meant something rather
relative than positive. Alison brought him a
playful message from her, that since he was not going
to Belfast, she should meet him with a freer conscience
if he would first give her time for Rose’s lessons,
