er 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 that one
sad earliest kiss on her brow, as she lay fire-scathed and apparently
dying; and who had cherished the dream unbroken and unwaveringly, had
denied himself consistently, had garnered up t