There was a ring of gladness in the usually patient voice that struck even Rachel, though she was usually too eager to be observant, but she was still unready with talk for the occasion, and Ermine continued: "We had heard so much of the Major before-hand, that we had a sort of Jupiter-like expectation of the coming man. I am not sure that I shall not go on expecting a mythic major!"

Rachel, never understanding playfulness, thought this both audacious and unnecessary, and if it had come from any one else, would have administered a snub, but she felt the invalid sacred from her weapons.

"Have you ever seen the boys?" asked Colonel Keith. "I am rather proud of Conrade, my pupil; he is so chivalrous towards his mother."

"Alison has brought down a division or two to show me. How much alike they are."

"Exactly alike, and excessively unruly and unmanageable," said Rachel.

"I pity your sister."

"More unmanageable in appearance than in reality," said the colonel: "there's always a little trial of strength against the hand over them, and they yield when they find it is really a hand. They were wonderfully good and considerate when it was an object to keep the house quiet."

Rachel would not encourage him to talk of Lady Temple, so she turned to Ermine on the business that had brought her, collecting and adapting old clothes for emigrants.--It was not exactly gentlemen's pastime, and Ermine tried to put it aside and converse, but Rachel never permitted any petty consideration to interfere with a useful design, and as there was a press of time for the things, she felt herself justified in driving the intruder off the field and outstaying him. She succeeded; he recollected the desire of the boys that he should take them to inspect the pony at the "Jolly Mariner," and took leave with--"I shall see you to-morrow."

"You knew him all the time!" exclaimed Rachel, pausing in her unfolding of the Master Temples' ship wardrobe. "Why did you not say so?"

"We did not know his name. He was always the 'Major.'"

"Who, and what is he?" demanded Rachel, as she knelt before her victim, fixing those great prominent eyes, so like those of Red Riding Hood's grandmother, that Ermine involuntarily gave a backward impulse to her wheeled chair, as she answered the readiest thing that occurred to her,--"He is brother to Lord Keith of Gowan-brae."

"Oh," said Rachel, kneeling on meditatively, "that accounts for it. So much the worse. The staff is made up of idle honourables."

"Quoth the 'Times!'" replied Ermine; "but his appointment began on account of a wound, and went on because of his usefulness--"

"Wounded! I don't like wounded heroes," said Rachel; "people make such a fuss with them that they always get spoilt."

"This was nine years ago, so you may forget it if you like," said Ermine, diversion suppressing displeasure.

"And what is your opinion of him?" said Rachel, edging forward on her knees, so as to bring her inquisitorial eyes to bear more fully.

"I had not seen him for twelve years," said Ermine, rather faintly.

"He must have had a formed character when you saw him last. The twelve years before five-and-forty don't alter the nature."

"Five-and-forty! Illness and climate have told, but I did not think it was so much. He is only thirty-six--"

"That is not what I care about," said Rachel, "you are both of you so cautious that you tell me what amounts to nothing! You should consider how important it is to me to know something about the person in whose power my cousin's affairs are left."

"Have you not sufficient guarantee in the very fact of her husband's confidence?"

"I don't know. A simple-hearted old soldier always means a very foolish old man."

"Witness the Newcomes," said Ermine, who, besides her usual amusement in tracing Rachel's dicta to their source, could only keep in her indignation by laughing.

"General observation," said Rachel, not to be turned from her purpose.

"I am not foolishly suspicious, but it is not pleasant to see great influence and intimacy without some knowledge of the person exercising it."

"I think," said Ermine, bringing herself with difficulty to answer quietly, "that you can hardly understand the terms they are on without having seen how much a staff officer becomes one of the family."

"I suppose much must be allowed for the frivolity and narrowness of a military set in a colony. Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration, absolutely he had none at all; he and Fanny only went off upon a nursemaid married to a sergeant!"

"Perhaps the bearings of the question would hardly suit mixed company."

"To be sure there was a conceited young officer there; for as ill luck will have it, my uncle's old regiment is quartered at Avoncester, and I suppose they will all be coming after Fanny. It is well they are no nearer, and as this colonel says he is going to Belfast in a day or two, there will not be much provocation to them to come here. Now this great event of the Major's coming is over, we will try to put Fanny upon a definite system, and I look to you and your sister as a great assistance to me, in counteracting the follies and nonsenses that her situation naturally exposes her to. I have been writing a little sketch of the dangers of indecision, that I thought of sending to the 'Traveller.' It would strike Fanny to see there what I so often tell her; but I can't get an answer about my paper on 'Curatocult,' as you made me call it."

"Did I!"

"You said the other word was of two languages. I can't think why they don't insert it; but in the meantime I will bring down my 'Human Reeds,'

and show them to you. I have only an hour's work on them; so I'll come to-morrow afternoon."

"I think Colonel Keith talked of calling again--thank you," suggested Ermine in despair.

"Ah, yes, one does not want to be liable to interruptions in the most interesting part. When he is gone to Belfast--"

"Yes, when he is gone to Belfast!" repeated Ermine, with an irresistible gleam of mirth about her lips and eyes, and at that moment Alison made her appearance. The looks of the sisters met, and read one another so far as to know that the meeting was over, and for the rest they endured, while Rachel remained, little imagining the trial her presence had been to Alison's burning heart--sick anxiety and doubt. How could it be well?

Let him be loveable, let him be constant, that only rendered Ermine's condition the more pitiable, and the shining glance of her eyes was almost more than Alison could bear. So happy as the sisters had been together, so absolutely united, it did seem hard to disturb that calm life with hopes and agitations that must needs be futile; and Alison, whose whole life and soul were in her sister, could not without a pang see that sister's heart belonging to another, and not for hopeful joy, but pain and grief. The yearning of jealousy was sternly reproved and forced down, and told that Ermine had long been Colin Keith's, that the perpetrator of the evil had the least right of any one to murmur that her own monopoly of her sister was interfered with; that she was selfish, unkind, envious; that she had only to hate herself and pray for strength to bear the punishment, without alloying Ermine's happiness while it lasted. How it could be so bright Alison knew not, but so it was she recognised by every tone of the voice, by every smile on the lip, by even the upright vigour with which Ermine sat in her chair and undertook Rachel's tasks of needlework.

And yet, when the visitor rose at last to go, Alison was almost unwilling to be alone with her sister, and have that power of sympathy put to the test by those clear eyes that were wont to see her through and through. She went with Rachel to the door, and stood taking a last instruction, hearing it not at all, but answering, and relieved by the delay, hardly knowing whether to be glad or not that when she returned Rose was leaning on the arm of her aunt's chair with the most eager face. But Rose was to be no protection, for what was passing between her and her aunt?

"O auntie, I am go glad he is coming back. He is just like the picture you drew of Robert Bruce for me. And he is so kind. I never saw any gentleman speak to you in such: a nice soft voice."

Alison had no difficulty in smiling as Ermine stroked the child's hair, kissed her, and looked up with an arch, blushing, glittering face that could not have been brighter those long twelve years ago.

And then Rose turned round, impatient to tell her other aunt her story.

"O aunt Ailie, we have had such a gentleman here, with a great brown beard like a picture. And he is papa's old friend, and kissed me because I am papa's little girl, and I do like him so very much. I went where I could look at him in the garden, when you sent me out, aunt Ermine."

"You did, you monkey?" said Ermine, laughing, and blushing again. "What will you do if I send you out next time? No, I won't then, my dear, for all the time, I should like you to see him and know him."

"Only, if you want to talk of anything very particular," observed Rose.

"I don't think I need ask many questions," said Alison, smiling being happily made very easy to her. "Dear Ermine, I see you are perfectly satisfied--"

"O Ailie, that is no word for it! Not only himself, but to find him loving Rose for her father's sake, undoubting of him through all. Ailie, the thankfulness of it is more than one can bear."

"And he is the same?" said Alison.

"The same--no, not the same. It is more, better, or I am able to feel it more. It was just like the morrow of the day he walked down the lane with me and gathered honeysuckles, only the night between has been a very, very strange time."

"I hope the interruption did not come very soon."

"I thought it was directly, but it could not have been so soon, since you are come home. We had just had time to tell what we most wanted to know, and I know a little more of what he is. I feel as if it were not only Colin again, but ten times Colin. O Ailie, it must be a little bit like the meetings in heaven!"

"I believe it is so with you," said Alison, scarcely able to keep the tears from her eyes.

"After sometimes not daring to dwell on him, and then only venturing because I thought he must be dead, to have him back again with the same looks, only deeper--to find that he clung to those weeks so long ago, and, above all, that there was not one cloud, one doubt about the troubles--Oh, it is too, too much."

Ermine lent back with clasped hands. She was like one weary with happiness, and lain to rest in the sense of newly-won peace. She said little more that evening, and if spoken to, seemed like one wakened out of a dream, so that more than once she laughed at herself, begged her sister's pardon, and said that it seemed to her that she could not hear anything for the one glad voice that rang in her ear, "Colin is come home." That was sufficient for her, no need for any other sympathy, felt Alison, with another of those pangs crushed down. Then wonder came--whether Ermine could really contemplate the future, or if it were absolutely lost in the present?

Colonel Keith went back to be seized by Conrade and Francis, and walked off to the pony inspection, the two boys, on either side of him, communicating to him the great grievance of living in a poky place like this, where nobody had ever been in the army, nor had a bit of sense, and Aunt Rachel was always bothering, and trying to make mamma think that Con told stories.