The Clever Woman of the Family [242]
sorts ye, when the head of yer name is sick an lyin' among thae English loons that hae brocht him to siccan a pass." "Right, Tibbie," exclaimed Ermine, greatly amused at the unexpected turn, purely for the sake of putting Maister Colin in the wrong. "If a gentleman won't be content without a bride who can't walk, he must take the consequence, and take his wedding trip by himself! It is my belief, Tibbie, as I have just been telling him, that you and I shall get the house in all the better order for having him off our hands, just at first," she added, with a look of intelligence. "Deed, an maybe we shall," responded Tibbie, with profound satisfaction. "He was aye a camsteary child when there was any wark on hand." Colin could not help laughing, and when once this had been effected, Ermine felt that his depression had been sufficiently met, and that she might venture on deeper, and more serious sympathy, befitting the chastened, thankful feelings with which they hailed the crowning of their youthful love, the fulfilment of the hopes and prayers that the one had persisted in through doubt and change, the other had striven to resign into the All-wise Hands. They had an early meal together, chiefly for the sake of his wheeling her to the head of his table, and "seeing how she looked there," and then the inexorable hour was come, and he left her, with the echo of her last words in his ear, "Goodbye, Colin, stay as long as you ought. It will make the meeting all the sweeter, and you have your wife to some back to now. Give a sister's love to your brother, and thanks for having spared you," and his last look at the door was answered with her sunshiny smile. But when, a few minutes after, Edward came up with Alison for his farewell, they found her lying back in her chair, half fainting, and her startled look told almost too plainly that she had not thought of her brother. "Never mind," said Edward, affectionately, as much to console Alison as Ermine for this oblivion; "of course it must be so, and I don't deserve otherwise. Nothing brought me home but Colin Keith's telling me that he saw you would not have him till my character was cleared up; and now he has repaired so much of the evil I did you, all I can do is to work to make it up to you in other ways. Goodbye, Ermine, I leave you all in much better hands than mine ever were, you are right enough in feeling that a week of his absence outweighs a year of mine. Bless you for all that you and he have done for my child. She, at least, is a comfort to you." Ermine's powers were absolutely exhausted; she could only answer him by embraces and tears; and all the rest of the day she was, to use her own expression, "good for nothing but to be let alone." Nor, though she exerted herself that she might with truth write that she was well and happy, was she good for much more on the next, and her jealous guardians allowed her to see no one but soft, fondling Lady Temple, who insisted on a relationship (through Rachel), and whose tender pensive quietness could not fail to be refreshment to the strained spirits, and wearied physical powers, and who better than anybody could talk of the Colonel, nay, who could understand, and even help Ermine herself to understand, that these ever-welling tears came from a source by no means akin to grief or repining. The whole aspect of the rooms was full of tokens of his love and thought for her. The ground-floor had been altered for her accommodation, the furniture chosen in accordance with her known tastes or with old memories, all undemonstratively prepared while yet she had not decided on her consent. And what touched her above all, was the collection of treasures that he had year by year gathered together for her throughout the weary waiting, purchases at which Lady Temple remembered her mother's banter, with his quiet evasions of explanation. No wonder Ermine laid her head on her hand, and could not retain her tears, as she recalled the white, dismayed face of the youth, who had printed