Scotch face, bald head, dark beard, grizzled hair.”
“Yes I am grey, and he was five years older; but he used not to have a Scotch face. Can you tell me about his eyes?”
“Dark,” I think.
“They were very dark blue, almost black. Time and climate must have left them alone. You may know him by those eyes, Ailie. And you could not make out anything about him?”
“No, not even his Christian name nor his regiment. I had only the little ones and Miss Rachel to ask, and they knew nothing. I wanted to keep this from you till I was sure, but you always find me out.”
“Do you think I couldn’t see the misery you were in all the evening, poor child? But now you have had it out, sleep, and don’t be distressed.”
“But, Ermine, if you—”
“My dear, I am thankful that nothing is amiss with you or Edward. For the rest, there is nothing but patience. Now, not another word; you must not lose your sleep, nor take away my chance of any.”
How much the sisters slept they did not confide to one another, but when they rose, Alison shook her head at her sister’s heavy eyelids, and Ermine retorted with a reproachful smile at certain dark tokens of sleeplessness under Alison’s eyes.
“No, not the flowered flimsiness, please,” she said, in the course of her toilette, “let me have the respectable grey silk.” And next she asked for a drawer, whence she chose a little Nuremberg horn brooch for her neck. “I know it is very silly,” she said, “but I can’t quite help it. Only one question, Ailie, that I thought of too late. Did he hear your name?”
“I think not, Lady Temple named nobody. But why did you not ask me last night?”
“I thought beginning to talk again would destroy your chance of sleep, and we had resolved to stop.”
“And, Ermine, if it be, what shall I do?”
“Do as you feel right at the moment,” said Ermine, after a moment’s pause. “I cannot tell how it may be. I have been thinking over what you told me about the Major and Lady Temple.”
“Oh, Ermine, what a reproof this is for that bit of gossip.”
“Not at all, my dear, the warning may be all the better for me,” said Ermine, with a voice less steady than her words. “It is not what, under the circumstances, I could think likely in the Colin whom I knew; but were it indeed so, then, Ailie, you had better say nothing about me, unless he found you out. We would get employment elsewhere.”
“And I must leave you to the suspense all day.”
“Much better so. The worst thing we could do would be to go on talking about it. It is far better for me to be left with my dear little unconscious companion.”
Alison tried to comfort herself with this belief through the long hours of the morning, during which she only heard that mamma and Colonel Keith were gone to the Homestead, and she saw no one till she came forth with her troop to the midday meal.
And there, at sight of Lady Temple’s content and calm, satisfied look, as though she were once more in an accustomed atmosphere, and felt herself and the boys protected, and of the Colonel’s courteous attention to her and affectionate authority towards her sons, it was an absolute pang to recognise the hue of eye described by Ermine; but still Alison tried to think them generic Keith eyes, till at length, amid the merry chatter of her pupils, came an appeal to “Miss Williams,” and then came a look that thrilled through her, the same glance that she had met for one terrible moment twelve years before, and renewing the same longing to shrink from all sight or sound. How she kept her seat and continued to attend to the children she never knew, but the voices sounded like a distant Babel; and she did not know whether she were most relieved, disappointed, or indignant when she left the dining-room to take the boys for their walk. Oh, that Ermine could be hid from all knowledge of what would be so much harder to bear than the death in which she had long believed!
Harder to bear? Yes, Ermine had already been passing through a heart sickness that made the morning like an age. Her resolute will had struggled hard for composure, cheerfulness, and occupation; but the little watchful niece had seen through the endeavour, and had made her own to the sleepless night and the headache. The usual remedy was a drive in a wheeled chair, and Rose was so urgent to be allowed to go and order one, that Ermine at last yielded, partly because she had hardly energy enough to turn her refusal graciously, partly because she would not feel herself staying at home for the vague hope and when the child was out of sight, she had the comfort of clasping her hands, and ceasing to restrain her countenance, while she murmured, “Oh, Colin, Colin, are you what you were twelve years back? Is this all dream, all delusion, and waste of feeling, while you are lying in your Indian grave, more mine than you can ever be living be as it may,—
“‘Calm me, my God, and keep me calm
While these hot breezes blow;
Be like the night dew’s cooling balm
Upon earth’s fevered brow.
Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
Soft resting on Thy breast;
Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm,
And bid my spirit rest.’”
CHAPTER V. MILITARY SOCIETY
“My trust
Like a good parent did beget of him
A falsehood in its contrary as great
As my trust was, which had indeed no limit.”
Rose found the wheeled chair, to which her aunt gave the preference, was engaged, and shaking her little discreet head at “the shakey chair” and “the stuffy chair,” she turned pensively homeward, and was speeding down Mackarel Lane, when she was stayed by the words, “My little girl!” and the grandest and most bearded gentleman she had ever seen, demanded, “Can you tell me if Miss Williams lives here?”
“My aunt?” exclaimed Rose, gazing up with her pretty, frightened-fawn look.
“Indeed!” he exclaimed, looking eagerly at her, “then you are the child of a very old friend of mine! Did you never hear him speak of his old school-fellow, Colin Keith?”
“Papa is away,” said Rose, turning back her neck to get a full view of his face from under the brim of her hat.
“‘Will you run on and ask your aunt if she would like to see me?” he added.
Thus it was that Ermine heard the quick patter of the child’s steps, followed by the manly tread, and the words sounded in her ears, “Aunt Ermine, there’s a gentleman, and he has a great beard, and he says he is papa’s old friend! And here he is.”
Ermine’s beaming eyes as absolutely met the new comer as though she had sprung forward. “I thought you would come,” she said, in a voice serene with exceeding bliss.
“I
