"No wonder; Edward was abroad, all connexion broken."
"I wrote to Beauchamp, and he knew nothing, and I could only wait till
my chief's time should be up. You know how it was cut short, and how
the care of the poor little widow detained me till she was fit for the
voyage. I came and sought you in vain in town. I went home, and found
my brother lonely and dispirited. He has lost his son, his daughters are
married, and he and I are all the brothers left out of the six! He was
urgent that I should come and live with him and marry. I told him I
would, with all my heart, when I had found you, and he saw I was too
much in earnest to be opposed. Then I went to Beauchamp, but Harry knew
nothing about any one. I tried to find out your sister and Dr. Long, but
heard they were gone to Belfast."
"Yes, they lost a good deal in the crash, and did not like retrenching
among their neighbours, so they went to Ireland, and there they have a
flourishing practice."
"I thought myself on my way there," he said, smiling; "only I had
first to settle Lady Temple, little guessing who was her treasure of
a governess! Last night I had nearly opened, on another false scent;
I fell in with a description that I could have sworn was yours, of the
heather behind the parsonage. I made a note of the publisher in case all
else had failed."
"I'm glad you knew the scent of the thyme!"
"Then it was no false scent?"
"One must live, and I was thankful to do anything to lighten Ailie's
burthen. I wrote down that description that I might live in the place in
fancy; and one day, when the contribution was wanted and I was hard up
for ideas, I sent it, though I was loth to lay open that bit of home and
heart."
"Well it might give me the sense of meeting you! And in other papers of
the series I traced your old self more ripened."
"The editor was a friend of Edward's, and in our London days he asked me
to write letters on things in general, and when I said I saw the world
through a key-hole, he answered that a circumscribed view gained in
distinctness. Most kind and helpful he has been, and what began between
sport and need to say out one's mind has come to be a resource for
which we are very thankful. He sends us books for reviewal, and that is
pleasant and improving, not to say profitable."
"Little did I think you were in such straits!" he said, stroking the
child's head, and waiting as though her presence were a restraint on
inquiries, but she eagerly availed herself of the pause. "Aunt Ermine,
please what shall I say about the chairs? Will you have the nice one and
Billy when they come home? I was to take the answer, only you did talk
so that I could not ask!"