Chapter 8

without purpose or occupation.”

“Fulfil my purpose, and I will find occupation.”

“Don’t say that.”

“This once, Ermine. For one year I shall wait in the hope of convincing you. If you do not change, your mind in that time, I shall look for another staff appointment, to last till Rose is ready for me.”

The gravity of this conclusion made Ermine laugh. “That’s what you learnt of your chief,” she said.

“There would be less difference in age,” he said. “Though I own I should like my widow to be less helpless than poor little Lady Temple. So,” he added, with the same face of ridiculous earnest, “if you continue to reject me yourself, you will at least rear her with an especial view to her efficiency in that capacity.”

And as Rose at that critical moment looked in at the window, eager to be encouraged to come and show Colinette’s successful toilette, he drew her to him with the smile that had won her whole heart, and listening to every little bit of honesty about “my work” and “Aunt Ermine’s work,” he told her that he knew she was a very managing domestic character, perfectly equal to the charge of both young ladies.

“Aunt Ermine says I must learn to manage, because some day I shall have to take care of papa.”

“Yes,” with his eyes on Ermine all the while, “learn to be a useful woman; who knows if we shan’t all depend on you by-and-by?”

“Oh do let me be useful to you,” cried Rose; “I could hem all your handkerchiefs, and make you a kettle-holder.”

Ermine had never esteemed him more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her views of life and education, putting them in the form of what would become of Rose as Lady Keith; and Colin kept his promise of making no more references to the future. On moving into his lodgings, the hour for his visits was changed, and unless he went out to dinner, he usually came in the evening, thus attracting less notice, and moreover rendering it less easy to lapse into the tender subject, as Alison was then at home, and the conversation was necessarily more general.

The afternoons were spent in Lady Temple’s service. Instead of the orthodox dowager britchska and pair, ruled over by a tyrannical coachman, he had provided her with a herd of little animals for harness or saddle, and a young groom, for whom Coombe was answerable. Mrs. Curtis groaned and feared the establishment would look flighty; but for the first time Rachel became the colonel’s ally. “The worst despotism practised in England,” she said, “is that of coachmen, and it is well that Fanny should be spared! The coachman who lived here when mamma was married, answered her request to go a little faster, ‘I shall drive my horses as I plazes,’ and I really think the present one is rather worse in deed, though not in word.”

Moreover, Rachel smoothed down a little of Mrs. Curtis’s uneasiness at Fanny’s change of costume at the end of her first year of widowhood, on the ground that Colonel Keith advised her to ride with her sons, and that this was incompatible with weeds. “And dear Sir Stephen did so dislike the sight of them,” she added, in her simple, innocent way, as if she were still dressing to please him.

“On the whole, mother,” said Rachel, “unless there is more heart-break than Fanny professes, there’s more coquetry in a pretty young thing wearing a cap that says, ‘come pity me,’ than in going about like other people.”

“I only wish she could help looking like a girl of seventeen,” sighed Mrs. Curtis. “If that colonel were but married, or the other young man! I’m sure she will fall into some scrape; she does not know how, out of sheer innocence.”

“Well, mother, you know I always mean to ride with her, and that will be a protection.”

“But, my dear, I am not sure about your riding with these gay officers; you never used to do such things.”

“At my age, mother, and to take care of Fanny.”

And Mrs. Curtis, in her uncertainty whether to sanction the proceedings and qualify them, or to make a protest--dreadful to herself, and more dreadful to Fanny,--yielded the point when she found herself not backed up by her energetic daughter, and the cavalcade almost daily set forth from Myrtlewood, and was watched with eyes of the greatest vexation, if not by kind Mrs. Curtis, by poor Mr. Touchett, to whom Lady Temple’s change of dress had been a grievous shock. He thought her so lovely, so interesting, at first; and now, though it was sacrilege to believe it of so gentle and pensive a face, was not this a return to the world? What had she to do with these officers? How could her aunt permit it? No doubt it was all the work of his great foe, Miss Rachel.

It was true that Rachel heartily enjoyed these rides. Hitherto she had been only allowed to go out under the escort of her tyrant the coachman, who kept her in very strict discipline. She had not anticipated anything much more lively with Fanny, her boys, and ponies; but Colonel Keith had impressed on Conrade and Francis that they were their mother’s prime protectors, and they regarded her bridle-rein as their post, keeping watch over her as if her safety depended on them, and ready to quarrel with each other if the roads were too narrow for all three to go abreast. And as soon as the colonel had ascertained that she and they were quite sufficient to themselves, and well guarded by Coombe in the rear, he ceased to regard himself as bound to their company, but he and Rachel extended their rides in search of objects of interest. She liked doing the honours of the county, and achieved expeditions which her coachman had hitherto never permitted to her, in search of ruins, camps, churches, and towers. The colonel had a turn for geology, though a wandering life even with an Indian baggage-train had saved him from incurring her contempt for collectors; but he knew by sight the character of the conformations of rocks, and when they had mounted one of the hills that surrounded Avonmouth, discerned by the outline whether granite, gneiss, limestone, or slate formed the grander height beyond, thus leading to schemes of more distant rides to verify the conjectures, which Rachel accepted with the less argument, because sententious dogmatism was not always possible on the back of a skittish black mare.

There was no concealing from herself that she was more interested by this frivolous military society than by any she had ever previously met. The want of comprehension of her pursuits in her mother’s limited range of acquaintance had greatly conduced both to her over-weening manner and to her general dissatisfaction with the world, and for the first time she was neither succumbed to, giggled at, avoided, nor put down with a grave, prosy reproof. Certainly Alick Keith, as every one called him, nettled her extremely by his murmured irony, but the acuteness of it was diverting in such a mere lad, and showed that if he could only once be roused, he might be capable of better things. There was an excitement in his unexpected manner of seeing things that was engaging as well as provoking; and Rachel never felt content if he were at Myrtlewood without her seeing him, if only because she began to consider him as more dangerous than his elder namesake, and so assured of his position that he did not take any pains to assert it, or to cultivate Lady Temple’s good graces; he was simply at home and perfectly at ease with her.

Colonel Keith’s tone was different. He was argumentative where his young cousin was sarcastic. He was reading some of the books over which Rachel had strained her capacities without finding any one with whom to discuss them, since all her friends regarded them as poisonous; and even Ermine Williams, without being shaken in her steadfast trust, was so haunted and distressed in her lonely and unvaried life by the echo of these shocks to the faith of others, that absolutely as a medical precaution she abstained from dwelling on them. On the other hand Colin Keith liked to talk and argue out his impressions, and found in Rachel the only person with whom the subject could be safely broached, and thus she for the first time heard the subjects fairly handled. Hitherto she had never thought that justice was done to the argument except by a portion of the press, that drew conclusions which terrified while they allured her, whereas she appreciated the candour that weighed each argument, distinguishing principle from prejudice, and religious faith from conventional construction, and in this measurement of minds she felt the strength, and acuteness of powers superior to her own. He was not one of the men who prefer unintellectual women. Perhaps clever men, of a profession not necessarily requiring constant brain work, are not so much inclined to rest the mind with feminine empty chatter, as are those whose intellect is more on the strain. At any rate, though Colonel Keith was attentive and courteous to every one, and always treated Lady Temple as a prime minister might treat a queen, his tendency to conversation with Rachel was becoming marked, and she grew increasingly prone to consult him. The interest of this new intercourse quite took out the sting of disappointment, when again Curatocult came back, “declined with thanks.” Nay, before making a third attempt she hazarded a question on his opinion of female authorship, and much to her gratification, and somewhat to her surprise, heard that he thought it often highly useful and valuable.

“That is great candour. Men generally grudge whatever they think their own privilege.”

“Many things can often be felt and expressed by an able woman better than by a man, and there is no reason that the utterance of anything worthy to be said should be denied, provided it is worthy to be said.”

“Ah! there comes the hit. I wondered if you would get through without it.”

“It was not meant as a hit. Men are as apt to publish what is not worth saying as women can be, and some women are so conscientious as only to put forth what is of weight and value.”

“And you are above wanting to silence them by palaver about unfeminine publicity?”

“There is no need of publicity. Much of the best and most wide-spread writing emanates from the most quiet, unsuspected quarters.”

“That is the benefit of an anonymous press.”

“Yes. The withholding of the name prevents well-mannered people from treating a woman as an authoress, if she does not proclaim herself one; and the difference is great between being known to write, and setting up for an authoress.”

“Between fact and pretension. But write or not write, there is an instinctive avoidance of an intellectual woman.”

“Not always, for the simple manner that goes with real superiority is generally very attractive. The larger and deeper the mind, the more there would be of the genuine humbleness and gentleness that a shallow nature is incapable of. The very word humility presupposes depth.”

“I see what you mean,” said Rachel. “Gentleness is not feebleness, nor lowness lowliness. There must be something held back.”

“I see it daily,” said Colonel Keith; and for a moment he seemed about to add something, but checked himself, and took advantage of an interruption to change the conversation.

“Superior natures lowly and gentle!” said Rachel to herself. “Am I so to him, then, or is he deceiving himself? What is to be done? At my age! Such a contravention of my principles! A soldier, an honourable, a title in prospect, Fanny’s major! Intolerable! No, no! My property absorbed by a Scotch peerage, when I want it for so many things! Never. I am sorry for him though. It is hard that a man who can forgive a woman for intellect, should be thrown back on poor little Fanny; and it is gratifying--. But I am untouched yet, and I will take care of myself. At my age a woman who loves at all, loves with all the gathered force of her nature, and I certainly feel no such passion. No, certainly not; and I am resolved not to be swept along till I have made up my mind to yield to the force of the torrent. Let us see.”

“Grace, my dear,” said Mrs. Curtis, in one of her most confidential moments, “is not dear Rachel looking very well? I never saw her dress so well put on.”

“Yes, she is looking very handsome,” said Grace. “I am glad she has consented to have her hair in that now way, it is very becoming to her.”

“I--I don’t know that it is all the hair,” said the mother, faltering, as if half ashamed of herself; “but it seemed to me that we need not have been so uneasy about dear Fanny. I think, don’t you? that there may be another attraction. To be sure, it would be at a terrible distance from us; but so good and kind as he is, it would be such a thing for you and Fanny as well--” Grace gave a great start.

“Yes, my dear,” Mrs. Curtis gently prosed on with her speculation, “she would be a dreadful loss to us; but you see, so clever and odd as she is, and with such peculiar ideas, I should be so thankful to see her in the hands of some good, sensible man that would guide her.”

“But do you really think it is so, mother?”

“Mind, my dear, it is nothing to build on, but I cannot help being struck, and just thinking to myself. I know you’ll not say anything.”

Grace felt much distressed after this communication had opened her eyes to certain little touches of softening and consciousness that sat oddly enough on her sister. From the first avowal of Colonel Keith’s acquaintance with the Williamses, she had concluded him to be the nameless lover, and had been disappointed that Alison, so far from completing the confidence, had become more reserved than ever, leaving her to wonder whether he were indeed the same, or whether his constancy had survived the change of circumstances. There were no grounds on which to found a caution, yet Grace felt full of discomfort and distrust, a feeling shared by Alison, who had never forgiven herself for her half confidence, and felt that it would be wiser to tell the rest, but was withheld by knowing that her motive would actuate her sister to a contrary course. That Colin should detach himself from her, love again, and marry, was what Ermine schooled herself to think fitting; but Alison alternated between indignant jealousy for her sister, and the desire to warn Rachel that she might at best win only the reversion of his heart. Ermine was happy and content with his evening visits, and would not take umbrage at the daily rides, nor the reports of drawing-room warfare, and Alison often wavered between the desire of preparing her, and the doubt whether it were not cruel to inflict the present pain of want of confidence. If that were a happy summer to some at Avonmouth, it was a very trying one to those two anxious, yet apparently uninterested sisters, who were but lookers-on at the game that affected their other selves.

At length, however, came a new feature into the quiet summer life at Avonmouth. Colin looked in on Ermine one morning to announce, with shrugged shoulders, and a face almost making game of himself, that his brother was coming! Lord Keith had been called to London on business, and would extend his journey to come and see what his brother was doing.

“This comes of being the youngest of the family,” observed Colin, meditatively. “One is never supposed capable of taking care of one’s self. With Keith I shall be the gay extravagant young officer to the end of my days.”

“You are not forgiving to your brother,” said Ermine.

“You have it in your power to make me so,” he said eagerly.

“Then you would have nothing to forgive,” she replied, smiling.

Lady Temple’s first thought was a renewal of her ardent wish that Ermine should be at Myrtlewood; and that Mackarel Lane, and the governesship should be as much as possible kept out of sight. Even Alison was on her side; not that she was ashamed of either, but she wished that Ermine should see and judge with her own eyes of Colin’s conduct, and also eagerly hailed all that showed him still committed to her sister. She was proportionably vexed that he did not think it expedient to harass Ermine with further invitations.

“My brother knows the whole,” he said, “and I do not wish to attempt to conceal anything.”

“I do not mean to conceal,” faltered Fanny, “only I thought it might save a shock--appearances--he might think better of it, if--”

“You thought only what was kind,” answered the colonel, “and I thank you for it most warmly; but this matter does not depend on my brother’s consent, and even if it did, Ermine’s own true position is that which is most honourable to her.”

Having said this, he was forced to console Fanny in her shame at her own kind attempt at this gentle little feminine subterfuge. He gratified her, however, by not interfering with her hospitable instincts of doing honour to and entertaining his brother, for whose sake her first approach to a dinner party was given; a very small one, but treated by her and her household as a far more natural occurrence than was any sort of entertainment at the Homestead. She even looked surprised, in her quiet way, at Mrs. Curtis’s proffers of assistance in the et ceteras, and gratefully answered for Coombe’s doing the right thing, without troubling herself further. Mrs. Curtis was less easy in her mind, her housewifely soul questioned the efficiency of her niece’s establishment, and she was moreover persuaded that Lord Keith must be bent on inspecting his brother’s choice, while even Rachel felt as if the toils of fate were being drawn round her, and let Grace embellish her for the dinner party, in an odd sort of mood, sometimes rejecting her attempts at decoration, sometimes vouchsafing a glance at the glass, chiefly to judge whether her looks were really as repellently practical and intellectual as she had been in the habit of supposing. The wreath of white roses, which she wore for the first time, certainly had a pleasing and softening effect, and she was conscious that she had never looked so well; then was vexed at the solicitude with which her mother looked her over, and fairly blushed with annoyance at the good lady’s evident satisfaction.

But, after all, Rachel, at her best, could not have competed with the grace of the quiet little figure that received them, the rich black silk giving dignity to the slender form, and a sort of compromise between veil and cap sheltering the delicate fair face; and with a son on each side, Fanny looked so touchingly proud and well supported, and the boys were so exultant and admiring at seeing her thus dressed, that it was a very pretty sight, and struck the first arrived of her guests, Mr. Touchett, quite dumb with admiration. Colonel Hammond, the two Keiths, and their young kinsman, completed the party. Lord Keith of Gowanbrae was best described by the said young kinsman’s words “a long-backed Scotchman.” He was so intensely Scottish that he made his brother look and sound the same, whereas ordinarily neither air nor accent would have shown the colonel’s nation, and there was no definable likeness between them, except, perhaps, the baldness of the forehead, but the remains of Lord Keith’s hair were silvered red, whereas Colin’s thick beard and scanty locks were dark brown, and with a far larger admixture of hoar-frost, though he was the younger by twenty years, and his brother’s appearance gave the impression of a far greater age than fifty-eight, there was the stoop of rheumatism, and a worn, thin look on the face, with its high cheek bones, narrow lips, and cold eyes, by no means winning. On the other hand, he was the most finished gentleman that Grace and Rachel had ever encountered; he had all the gallant polish of manner that the old Scottish nobility have inherited from the French of the old regime--a manner that, though Colin possessed all its essentials, had been in some degree rubbed off in the frankness of his military life, but which the old nobleman retained in its full perfection. Mrs. Curtis admired it extremely as a specimen of the “old school,” for which she had never ceased to mourn; and Rachel felt as if it took her breath away by the likeness to Louis XIV.; but, strange to say, Lady Temple acted as if she were quite in her element. It might be that the old man’s courtesy brought back to her something of the tender chivalry of her soldier husband, and that a sort of filial friendliness had become natural to her towards an elderly man, for she responded at once, and devoted herself to pleasing and entertaining him. Their civilities were something quite amusing to watch, and in the evening, with a complete perception of his tastes, she got up a rubber for him.

“Can you bear it? You will not like to play?” murmured the colonel to her, as he rung for the cards, recollecting the many evenings of whist with her mother and Sir Stephen.

“Oh! I don’t mind. I like anything like old times, and my aunt does not like playing--”

No, for Mrs. Curtis had grown up in a family where cards were disapproved, and she felt it a sad fall in Fanny to be playing with all the skill of her long training, and receiving grand compliments from Lord Keith on joint victories over the two colonels. It was a distasteful game to all but the players, for Rachel felt slightly hurt at the colonel’s defection, and Mr. Touchett, with somewhat of Mrs. Curtis’s feeling that it was a backsliding in Lady Temple, suddenly grew absent in a conversation that he was holding with young Mr. Keith upon--of all subjects in the world--lending library books, and finally repaired to the piano, where Grace was playing her mother’s favourite music, in hopes of distracting her mind from Fanny’s enormity; and there he stood, mechanically thanking Miss Curtis, but all the time turning a melancholy eye upon the game. Alick Keith, meanwhile, sat himself down near Rachel and her mother, close to an open window, for it was so warm that even Mrs. Curtis enjoyed the air; and perhaps because that watching the colonel had made Rachel’s discourses somewhat less ready than usual, he actually obtained an interval in which to speak! He was going the next day to Bishops Worthy, there to attend his cousin’s wedding, and at the end of a fortnight to bring his sister for her visit to Lady Temple. This sister was evidently his great care, and it needed but little leading to make him tell a good deal about her. She had, it seemed, been sent home from the Cape at about ten years old, when the regiment went to India, and her brother who had been at school, then was with her for a short time before going out to join the regiment.

“Why,” said Rachel, recovering her usual manner, “you have not been ten years in the army!”

“I had my commission at sixteen,” he answered.

“You are not six-and-twenty!” she exclaimed.

“You are as right as usual,” was the reply, with his odd little smile; “at least till the 1st of August.”

“My dear!” said her mother, more alive than Rachel to his amusement at her daughter’s knowing his age better than he did himself, but adding, politely, “you are hardly come to the time of life for liking to hear that your looks deceived us.”

“Boys are tolerated,” he said, with a quick glance at Rachel; but at that moment something many-legged and tickling flitted into the light, and dashed over her face. Mrs. Curtis was by no means a strong-minded woman in the matter of moths and crane-flies, disliking almost equally their sudden personal attentions and their suicidal propensities, and Rachel dutifully started up at once to give chase to the father-long-legs, and put it out of window before it had succeeded in deranging her mother’s equanimity either by bouncing into her face, or suspending itself by two or three legs in the wax of the candle. Mr. Keith seconded her efforts, but the insect was both lively and cunning, eluding them with a dexterity wonderful in such an apparently over-limbed creature, until at last it kindly rested for a moment with its wooden peg of a body sloping, and most of its thread-like members prone upon a newspaper, where Rachel descended on it with her pocket-handkerchief, and Mr. Keith tried to inclose it with his hands at the same moment. To have crushed the fly would have been melancholy, to have come down on the young soldier’s fingers, awkward; but Rachel did what was even more shocking--her hands did descend on, what should have been fingers, but they gave way under her--she felt only the leather of the glove between her and the newspaper. She jumped and very nearly cried out, looking up with an astonishment and horror only half reassured by his extremely amused smile. “I beg your pardon; I’m so sorry--” she gasped confused.

“Inferior animals can dispense with a member more or less,” he replied, giving her the other corner of the paper, on which they bore their capture to the window, and shook it till it took wing, with various legs streaming behind it. “That venerable animal is apparently indifferent to having left a third of two legs behind him,” and as he spoke he removed the already half drawn-off left-hand glove, and let Rachel see for a moment that it had only covered the thumb, forefinger, two joints of the middle, and one of the third; the little finger was gone, and the whole hand much scarred. She was still so much dismayed that she gasped out the first question she had ever asked him--

“Where--?”

“Not under the handkerchief,” he answered, picking it up as if he thought she wanted convincing. “At Delhi, I imagine.”

At that moment, Grace, as an act of general beneficence certainly pleasing to her mother, began to sing. It was a stop to all conversation, for Mrs. Curtis particularly disliked talking during singing, and Rachel had to digest her discoveries at her leisure, as soon as she could collect herself after the unnatural and strangely lasting sensation of the solid giving way. So Grace was right, he was no boy, but really older than Fanny, the companion of her childhood, and who probably would have married her had not the general come in the way! Here was, no doubt, the real enemy, while they had all been thinking of Colonel Keith. A man only now expecting his company! It would sound more absurd. Yet Rachel was not wont to think how things would sound! And this fresh intense dislike provoked her. Was it the unsuitability of the young widow remarrying? “Surely, surely, it must not be that womanhood in its contemptible side is still so strong that I want to keep all for myself! Shame! And this may be the true life love, suppressed, now able to revive! I have no right to be disgusted, I will watch minutely, and judge if he will be a good guide and father to the boys, though it may save the colonel trouble. Pish! what have I to do with either? Why should I think about them? Yet I must care for Fanny, I must dislike to see her lower herself even in the eyes of the world. Would it really be lowering herself? I cannot tell, I must think it out. I wish that game was over, or that Grace would let one speak.”

But songs and whist both lasted till the evening was ended by Lady Temple coming up to the curate with her winnings and her pretty smile, “Please, Mr. Touchett, let this go towards some treat for the school children. I should not like to give it in any serious way, you know, but just for some little pleasure for them.”

If she had done it on purpose, she could not have better freshly riveted his chains. That pensive simplicity, with the smile of heartfelt satisfaction at giving pleasure to anybody, were more and more engaging as her spirits recovered their tone, and the most unsatisfactory consideration which Rachel carried away that evening was that Alexander Keith being really somewhat the senior, if the improvement in Fanny’s spirits were really owing to his presence, the objection on the score of age would not hold. But, thought Rachel, Colonel Keith being her own, what united power they should have over Fanny. Pooh! she had by no means resigned herself to have him, though for Fanny’s sake it might be well, and was there not a foolish prejudice in favour of married women, that impeded the usefulness of single ones? However, if the stiff, dry old man approved of her for her fortune’s sake, that would be quite reason enough for repugnance.

The stiff old man was the pink of courtesy, and paid his respects in due order to his brother’s friends the next day, Colin attending in his old aide-de-camp fashion. It was curious to see them together. The old peer was not at all ungracious to his brother; indeed, Colin had been agreeably surprised by an amount of warmth and brotherliness that he had never experienced from him before, as if old age had brought a disposition to cling to the remnant of the once inconveniently large family, and make much of the last survivor, formerly an undesirable youngest favourite, looked on with jealous eyes and thwarted and retaliated on for former petting, as soon as the reins of government fell from the hands of the aged father. Now, the elder brother was kind almost to patronizing, though evidently persuaded that Colin was a gay careless youth, with no harm in him, but needing to be looked after; and as to the Cape, India, and Australia being a larger portion of the world than Gowanbrae, Edinburgh, and London, his lordship would be incredulous to the day of his death.

He paid his formal and gracious visits at Myrtlewood and the Homestead, and then supposed that his brother would wish him to call upon “these unfortunate ladies.” Colin certainly would have been vexed if he had openly slighted them; but Alison, whom the brothers overtook on their way into Mackarel Lane, did not think the colonel looked in the most felicitous frame of mind, and thought the most charitable construction might be that he shared her wishes that she could be a few minutes in advance; to secure that neither Rose’s sports nor Colinette’s toilette were very prominent.

All was right, however; Ermine’s taste for the fitness of things had trained Rose into keeping the little parlour never in stiff array, but also never in a state to be ashamed of, and she herself was sitting in the shade in the garden, whither, after the first introduction, Colin and Rose brought seats; and the call, on the whole, went off extremely well. Ermine naver let any one be condescending to her, and conducted the conversation with her usual graceful good breeding, while the colonel, with Rose on his knee, half talked to the child, half listened and watched.

As soon as he had deposited his brother at the hotel, he came back again, and in answer to Ermine’s “Well,” he demanded, “What she thought of his brother, and if he were what she expected?”

“Very much, only older and feebler. And did he communicate his views of Mackarel Lane? I saw him regarding, me as a species of mermaid or syren, evidently thinking it a great shame that I have not a burnt face. If he had only known about Rose!”

“The worst of it is that he wants me to go home with him, and I am afraid I must do so, for now that he and I are the last in the entail, there is an opportunity of making an arrangement about the property, for which he is very anxious.”

“Well, you know, I have long thought it would be very good for you.”

“And when I am there I shall have to visit every one in the family;” and he looked into her eyes to see if she would let them show concern, but she kept up their brave sparkle as she still said, “You know you ought.”

“Then you deliver me up to Keith’s tender mercies till--”

“Till you have done your duty--and forgiven him.”

“Remember, Ermine, I can’t spend a winter in Scotland. A cold always makes the ball remind me of its presence in my chest, and I was told that if I spent a winter at home, it must be on the Devonshire coast.”

“That ball is sufficient justification for ourselves, I allow,” she said, that one little word our making up for all that had gone before.

“And meantime you will write to me--about Rose’s education.”

“To be sure, or what would be the use of growing old?”

Alison felt savage all through this interview. That perfect understanding and the playful fiction about waiting for Rose left him a great deal too free. Ermine might almost be supposed to want to get rid of him, and even when he took leave she only remained for a few minutes leaning her cheek on her hand, and scarcely indulged in a sigh before asking to be wheeled into the house again, nor would she make any remark, save “It has been too bright a summer to last for ever. It would be very wrong to wish him to stay dangling here. Let what will happen, he is himself.”

It sounded far too like a deliberate resignation of him, and persuasion that if he went he would not return to be all he had been. However, the departure was not immediate, Lord Keith had taken a fancy to the place and scenery, and wished to see all the lions of the neighbourhood, so that there were various expeditions in the carriages or on horseback, in which he displayed his grand courtesy to Lady Temple, and Rachel enjoyed the colonel’s conversation, and would have enjoyed it still more if she had not been tracing a meaning in every attention that he paid her, and considering whether she was committing herself by receiving it. She was glad he was going away that she might have time to face the subject, and make up her mind, for she was convinced that the object of his journey was to make himself certain of his prospects. When he said that he should return for the winter, and that he had too much to leave at Avonmouth to stay long away from it, there must be a meaning in his words.

Ermine had one more visit from Lord Keith, and this time he came alone. He was in his most gracious and courteous mood, and sat talking of indifferent things for some time, of his aunt Lady Alison, and of Beauchamp in the old time, so that Ermine enjoyed the renewal of old associations and names belonging to a world unlike her present one. Then he came to Colin, his looks and his health, and his own desire to see him quit the army.

Ermine assented to his health being hardly fit for the army, and restrained the rising indignation as she recollected what a difference the best surgical advice might have made ten years ago.

And then, Lord Keith said, a man could hardly be expected to settle down without marrying. He wished earnestly to see his brother married, but, unfortunately, charges on his estate would prevent him from doing anything for him; and, in fact, he did not see any possibility of his--of his marrying, except a person with some means.

“I understand,” said Ermine, looking straight before her, and her colour mounting.

“I was sure that a person of your great good sense would do so,” said Lord Keith. “I assure you no one can be more sensible than myself of the extreme forbearance, discretion, and regard for my brother’s true welfare that has been shown here.”

Ermine bowed. He did not know that the vivid carmine that made her look so handsome was not caused by gratification at his praise, but by the struggle to brook it patiently.

“And now, knowing the influence over him that, most deservedly, you must always possess, I am induced to hope that, as his sincere friend, you will exert it in favour of the more prudent counsels.”

“I have no influence over his judgment,” said Ermine, a little proudly.

“I mean,” said Lord Keith, forced to much closer quarters, “you will excuse me for speaking thus openly--that in the state of the case, with so much depending on his making a satisfactory choice, I feel convinced, with every regret, that you will feel it to be for his true welfare--as indeed I infer that you have already endeavoured to show him--to make a new beginning, and to look on the past as past.”

There was something in the insinuating tone of this speech, increased as it was by the modulation of his Scottish voice, that irritated his hearer unspeakably, all the more because it was the very thing she had been doing.

“Colonel Keith must judge for himself,” she said, with a cold manner, but a burning heart.

“I--I understand,” said Lord Keith, “that you had most honourably, most consistently, made him aware that--that what once might have been desirable has unhappily become impossible.”

“Well,” said Ermine.

“And thus,” he proceeded, “that the sincere friendship with which you still regard him would prevent any encouragement to continue an attachment, unhappily now hopeless and obstructive to his prospects.”

Ermine’s eyes flashed at the dictation. “Lord Keith,” she said, “I have never sought your brother’s visits nor striven to prolong them; but if he finds pleasure in them after a life of disappointment and trouble, I cannot refuse nor discourage them.”

“I am aware,” said Lord Keith, rising as if to go, “that I have trespassed long on your time, and made a suggestion only warranted by the generosity with which you have hitherto acted.”

“One may be generous of one’s own, not of other people’s,” said Ermine.

He looked at her puzzled, then said, “Perhaps it will be best to speak categorically, Miss Williams. Let it be distinctly understood that my brother Colin, in paying his addresses to you, is necessarily without my sanction or future assistance.”

“It might not be necessary, my lord. Good morning;” and her courteous bow was an absolute dismissal.

But when Alison came home she found her more depressed than she had allowed herself to be for years, and on asking what was the matter was answered--

“Pride and perverseness, Ailie!” then, in reply to the eager exclamation, “I believe he was justified in all he said. But, Ailie, I have preached to Colin more than I had a right to do about forgiving his brother. I did not know how provoking he can be. I did not think it was still in me to fly out as I did!”

“He had no business to come here interfering and tormenting you,” said Alison, hotly.

“I dare say he thought he had! But one could not think of that when it came to threatening me with his giving no help to Colin if--There was no resisting telling him how little we cared!”

“You have not offended him so that he will keep Colin away!”

“The more he tried, the more Colin would come! No, I am not sorry for having offended him. I don’t mind him; but Ailie, how little one knows! All the angry and bitter feelings that I thought burnt out for ever when I lay waiting for death, are stirred up as hotly as they were long ago. The old self is here as strong as ever! Ailie, don’t tell Colin about this; but to-morrow is a saint’s day, and would you see Mr. Touchett, and try to arrange for me to go to the early service? I think then I might better be helped to conquer this.”

“But, Ermine, how can you? Eight o’clock, you know.”

“Yes, dearest, it will give you a great deal of trouble, but you never mind that, you know; and I am so much stronger than I used to be, that you need not fear. Besides, I want help so much! And it is the day Colin goes away!”

Alison obeyed, as she always obeyed her sister; and Lord Keith, taking his constitutional turn before breakfast on the esplanade, was met by what he so little expected to encounter that he had not time to get out of the way--a Bath chair with Alison walking on one side, his brother on the other. He bowed coldly, but Ermine held out her hand, and he was obliged to come near.

“I am glad to have met you,” she said.

“I am glad to see you out so early,” he answered, confused.

“This is an exception,” she said, smiling and really looking beautiful. “Good-bye, I have thought over what passed yesterday, and I believe we are more agreed than perhaps I gave you reason to think.”

There was a queenly air of dignified exchange of pardon in her manner of giving her hand and bending her head as she again said “Good-bye,” and signed to her driver to move on.

Lord Keith could only say “Good-bye;” then, looking after her, muttered, “After all, that is a remarkable woman.”