Soon Colonel Keith was knocking at Ermine's door, and Rose was clinging

to him, glowing and sparkling with shy ecstasy; while, without sitting

down again after her greeting, Rachel resolutely took leave, and walked

away with firm steps, ruminating on her determination not to encourage

meetings in Mackarel Lane.

"Better than I expected!" exclaimed Colonel Keith, after having

ushered her to the door in the fulness of his gratitude. "I knew it was

inevitable that she should be here, but that she should depart so fast

was beyond hope!"

"Yes," said Ermine, laughing, "I woke with such a certainty that she

would be here and spend the first half hour in the F. U. E, E. that I

wasted a great deal of resignation. But how are you, Colin? You are much

thinner! I am sure by Mrs. Tibbie's account you were much more ill than

you told me."

"Only ill enough to convince me that the need of avoiding a northern

winter was not a fallacy, and likewise to make Tibbie insist on coming

here for fear Maister Colin should not be looked after. It is rather

a responsibility to have let her come, for she has never been farther

south than Edinburgh, but she would not be denied. So she has been to

see you! I told her you would help her to find her underlings. I thought

it might be an opening for that nice little girl who was so oppressed

with lace-making."

"Ah! she has gone to learn wood-cutting at the F. U. E. E.; but I hope

we have comfortably provided Tibbie with a damsel. She made us a long

visit, and told us all about Master Colin's nursery days. Only I am

afraid we did not understand half."

"Good old body," said the Colonel, in tones almost as national as

Tibbie's own. "She was nursery girl when I was the spoilt child of the

house, and hers was the most homelike face that met me. I wish she may

be happy here. And you are well, Ermine?"

"Very well, those drives are so pleasant, and Lady Temple so kind! It is

wonderful to think how many unlooked-for delights have come to us; how

good every one is;" and her eyes shone with happy tears as she looked

up at him, and felt that he was as much her own as ever. "And you have

brought your brother," she said; "you have been too useful to him to be

spared. Is he come to look after you or to be looked after!"

"A little of both I fancy," said the Colonel, "but I suspect he is

giving me up as a bad job. Ermine, there are ominous revivifications

going on at home, and he has got himself rigged out in London, and had

his hair cut, so that he looks ten years younger."




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