t go away," she said. "I know your time will be taken up,
and you must not let me or the boys be troublesome; but to have you here
makes me so much less lost and lonely. And I shall have such a friend in
your Erminia. Is that her name?"

"Ermine, an old Welsh name, the softest I ever heard. Indeed it is
dressing time," added Colonel Keith, and both moved away with the
startled precision of members of a punctual military household, still
feeling themselves accountable to somebody.

CHAPTER VI. ERMINE'S RESOLUTION

"For as his hand the weather steers,
So thrive I best 'twixt joys and tears,
And all the year have some green ears."--H. VAUGHAN.

Alison had not been wrong in her presentiment that the second interview
would be more trying than the first. The exceeding brightness and
animation of Ermine's countenance, her speaking eyes, unchanged
complexion, and lively manner--above all, the restoration of her real
substantial self--had so sufficed and engrossed Colin Keith in the
gladness of their first meeting that he had failed to comprehend her
helpless state; and already knowing her to be an invalid, not entirely
recovered from her accident, he was only agreeably surprised to see
the beauty of face he had loved so long, retaining all its vivacity
of expression. And when he met Alison the next morning with a cordial
brotherly greeting and inquiry for her sister, her "Very well," and "not
at all the worse for the excitement," were so hearty and ready that he
could not have guessed that "well" with Ermine meant something rather
relative than positive. Alison brought him a playful message from her,
that since he was not going to Belfast, she should meet him with a freer
conscience if he would first give her time for Rose's lessons, and,
as he said, he had lived long enough with Messrs. Conrade and Co. to
acknowledge the wisdom of the message. But Rose had not long been at
leisure to look out for him before he made his appearance, and walked
in by right, as one at home; and sitting down in his yesterday's place,
took the little maiden on his knee, and began to talk to her about the
lessons he had been told to wait for. What would she have done without
them? He knew some people who never could leave the house quiet enough
to hear one's-self speak if they were deprived of lessons. Was that the
way with her? Rose laughed like a creature, her aunt said, "to whom the
notion of noise at play was something strang