you please?"

"I should punch him," returned Francis.

"He knows better," quoth Conrade in the same breath, both with infinite
contempt for Hubert.

"And I know better," returned Colonel Keith; "never mind, boys, I'll
come back in--in reasonable time to carry him off," and he waved a gay
farewell.

"Surely you wish to go too," said Bessie to Alison, "if only to relieve
them of the little girl! I'll take care of the boys. Pray go."

"Thank you," said Alison, surprised at her knowledge of the state of
things, "but they are quite hardened to Rose's presence, and I think
would rather miss her."

And in fact Alison did not feel at all sure that, when stimulated by
Bessie's appreciation of their mischief, her flock might not in her
absence do something that might put their mother in despair, and make
their character for naughtiness irretrievable; so Leoline and Hubert
were summoned, the one from speculations whether Lord Keith would have
punched his brother, the other from amaze that there was anything our
military secretary could not do, and Conrade and Francis were arrested
in the midst of a significant contraction of the nostrils and opening
of the mouth, which would have exploded in an "eehaw" but for Bessie's
valiant undertaking to be herself and Lady Temple both at once.

Soon Colonel Keith was knocking at Ermine's door, and Rose was clinging
to him, glowing and sparkling with shy ecstasy; while, without sitting
down again after her greeting, Rachel resolutely took leave, and walked
away with firm steps, ruminating on her determination not to encourage
meetings in Mackarel Lane.

"Better than I expected!" exclaimed Colonel Keith, after having
ushered her to the door in the fulness of his gratitude. "I knew it was
inevitable that she should be here, but that she should depart so fast
was beyond hope!"

"Yes," said Ermine, laughing, "I woke with such a certainty that she
would be here and spend the first half hour in the F. U. E, E. that I
wasted a great deal of resignation. But how are you, Colin? You are much
thinner! I am sure by Mrs. Tibbie's account you were much more ill than
you told me."

"Only ill enough to convince me that the need of avoiding a northern
winter was not a fallacy, and likewise to make Tibbie insist on coming
here for fear Maister Colin should not be looked after. It is rather
a responsibility to have let her come, for she has never been farther
south than Edinburgh, but she would not