r 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 thro