t 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