is house was to ask a
rheumatic sergeant, who had lately been invalided, to come and benefit
by the Avonmouth climate. Scottish hospitality softened Tibbie's heart,
and when she learnt that Sergeant O'Brien had helped to carry Master
Colin into camp after his wound, she thought nothing too good for him.
The Colonel then ventured to add to the party an exemplary consumptive
tailor from Mr. Mitchell's parish, who might yet be saved by good
living and good air. Some growls were elicited, but he proved to be
so deplorably the ninetieth rather than the ninth part of a man, that
Tibbie made it her point of honour to fatten him; and the sergeant
found him such an intelligent auditor of the Indian exploits of the
--th Highlanders that mutual respect was fully established, and high
politeness reigned supreme, even though the tailor could never be
induced to delight in the porridge, on which the sergeant daily
complimented the housekeeper in original and magnificent metaphors.

Nor had the Colonel any anxieties in leaving the representatives of the
three nations together while he went to attend his brother's wedding. He
proposed that Tibbie should conduct Rose for the daily walk of which
he had made a great point, thinking that the child did not get exercise
enough, since she was so averse to going alone upon the esplanade that
her aunt forbore to press it. She manifested the same reluctance to
going out with Tibbie, and this the Colonel ascribed to her fancying
herself too old to be under the charge of a nurse. It was trying to
laugh her out of her dignity, but without eliciting an answer, when,
one afternoon just as they were entering together upon the esplanade, he
felt her hand tighten upon his own with a nervous frightened clutch, as
she pressed tremulously to his side.

"What is it, my dear? That dog is not barking at you. He only wants to
have a stick thrown into the sea for him."

"Oh not the dog! It was--"

"Was, what?"

"HIM!" gasped Rose.

"Who?" inquired the Colonel, far from prepared for the reply, in a
terrified whisper,--

"Mr. Maddox."

"My dear child! Which, where?"

"He is gone! he is past. Oh, don't turn back! Don't let me see him
again."

"You don't suppose he could hurt you, my dear."

"No," hesitated Rose, "not with you."

"Nor with any one."

"I suppose not," said Rose, common sense reviving, though her grasp was
not relaxed.

"Would it distress you very much to try to point him out to m