"So that is Edward's little girl! Why, she is the sweetest little
clear-headed thing I have seen a long time. She was the saving of us."
"It was well thought of by Colin."
"Colin is a lawyer spoilt--that's a fact. A first-rate get-up of a
case!"
"And you think it safe now?"
"Nothing safer, so Edward turns up. How he can keep away from such a
child as that, I can't imagine. Where is she? Oh, here--" as they came
into the porch in fuller light, where the Colonel and Rose waited for
them. "Ha, my little Ailie, I must make better friends with you."
"My name is Rose, not Ailie," replied the little girl.
"Oh, aye! Well, it ought to have been, what d'ye call her--that was a
Daniel come to judgment?"
"Portia," returned Rose; "but I don't think that is pretty at all."
"And where is Lady Temple?" anxiously asked Alison. "She must be grieved
to be detained so long."
"Oh! Lady Temple is well provided for," said the Colonel, "all the
magistrates and half the bar are at her feet. They say the grace and
simplicity of her manner of giving her evidence were the greatest
contrast to poor Rachel's."
"But where is she?" still persisted Alison.
"At the hotel; Maria's was the last case of the day, and she went away
directly after it, with such a choice of escorts that I only just spoke
to her."
And at the hotel they found the waggonette at the gateway, and Lady
Temple in the parlour with Sir Edward Morden, who, late as it was,
would not leave her till he had seen her with the rest of the party. She
sprang up to meet them, and was much relieved to hear that Mauleverer
was again secured. "Otherwise," she said, "it would have been all my
fault for having acted without asking advice. I hope I shall never do so
again."
She insisted that all should go home together in the waggonette, and
Rose found herself upon Mr. Beauchamp's knee, serving as usual as a
safety valve for the feelings of her aunt's admirers. There was no
inconstancy on her part, she would much have preferred falling to the
lot of her own Colonel, but the open carriage drive was rather a
risk for him in the night air, and though he had undertaken it in the
excitement, he soon found it requisite to muffle himself up, and speak
as little as possible. Harry Beauchamp talked enough for both. He was
in high spirits, partly, as Colin suspected, with the escape from a dull
formal home, and partly with the undoing of a wrong that had rankled
in his conscience more than he had allowed to himself. Lady Temple,
her heart light at the convalescence of her sons, was pleased with
everything, liked him extremely, and answered gaily; and Alison enjoyed
the resumption of pleasant habits of days gone by. Yet, delightful as it
all was, there was a sense of disenchantment: she was marvelling all the
time how she could have suffered so much on Harry Beauchamp's account.
The rejection of him had weighed like a stone upon her heart, but now it
seemed like freedom to have escaped his companionship for a lifetime.