e into Avonmouth air," said he, "I fear nothing but
cold. I am glad to have brought him with me, since he could not stay
there, for it is very lonely for him."

"Yet you said his daughter was settled close by."

"Yes; but that makes it the worse. In fact, Ermine, I did not know
before what a wretched affair he had made of his daughters' marriages.
Isabel he married when she was almost a child to this Comyn Menteith,
very young too at the time, and who has turned out a good-natured,
reckless, dissipated fellow, who is making away with his property as
fast as he can, and to whom Keith's advice is like water on a duck's
back. It is all rack and ruin and extravagance, a set of ill-regulated
children, and Isabel smiling and looking pretty in the midst of them,
and perfectly impervious to remonstrance. He is better out of sight of
them, for it is only pain and vexation, an example of the sort of match
he likes to make. Mary, the other daughter, was the favourite, and used
to her own way, and she took it. Keith was obliged to consent so as to
prevent an absolute runaway wedding, but he has by no means forgiven
her husband, and they are living on very small means on a Government
appointment in Trinidad. I believe it would be the bitterest pill to him
that either son-in-law should come in for any part of the estate."

"I thought it was entailed."

"Gowanbrae is, but as things stand at present that ends with me, and the
other estates are at his disposal."

"Then it would be very hard on the daughters not to have them."

"So hard that the death of young Alexander may have been one of the
greatest disasters of my life, as well as of poor Keith's. However, this
is riding out to meet perplexities. He is most likely to outlive me;
and, moreover, may marry and put an end to the difficulty. Meantime,
till my charge is relieved, I must go and see after him, and try if I
can fulfil Hubert's polite request that I would take him away. Rosie, my
woman, I have hardly spoken to you. I have some hyacinth roots to bring
you to-morrow."

In spite of these suspicions, Colonel Keith was not prepared for what
met him on his return to Myrtlewood. On opening the drawing-room door,
he found Lady Temple in a low arm-chair in an agony of crying, so that
she did not hear his approach till he stood before her in consternation.
Often had he comforted her before, and now, convinced that something
dreadful must have befallen one of the children, he has