ll should go home together in the waggonette, and
Rose found herself upon Mr. Beauchamp's knee, serving as usual as a
safety valve for the feelings of her aunt's admirers. There was no
inconstancy on her part, she would much have preferred falling to the
lot of her own Colonel, but the open carriage drive was rather a
risk for him in the night air, and though he had undertaken it in the
excitement, he soon found it requisite to muffle himself up, and speak
as little as possible. Harry Beauchamp talked enough for both. He was
in high spirits, partly, as Colin suspected, with the escape from a dull
formal home, and partly with the undoing of a wrong that had rankled
in his conscience more than he had allowed to himself. Lady Temple,
her heart light at the convalescence of her sons, was pleased with
everything, liked him extremely, and answered gaily; and Alison enjoyed
the resumption of pleasant habits of days gone by. Yet, delightful as it
all was, there was a sense of disenchantment: she was marvelling all the
time how she could have suffered so much on Harry Beauchamp's account.
The rejection of him had weighed like a stone upon her heart, but now it
seemed like freedom to have escaped his companionship for a lifetime.

Presently a horse's feet were heard on the road before them; there was
a meeting and a halt, and Alick Keith's voice called out--"How has it
gone?"

"Why, were you not in court?"

"What! I go to hear my friends baited!"

"Where were you then?"

"At Avonmouth."

"Oh, then you have seen the boys," cried Lady Temple. "How is Conrade?"

"Quite himself. Up to a prodigious amount of indoor croquet. But how has
it gone?"

"Such a shame!" returned Lady Temple. "They acquitted the dreadful man,
and the poor woman, whom he drove to it, has a year's imprisonment and
hard labour!"

"Acquitted! What, is he off?"

"Oh, no, no! he is safe, and waiting for the Assizes, all owing to the
Colonel and little Rose."

"He is committed for the former offence," said Colonel Keith; "the
important one."

"That's right! Good night! And how," he added, reining back his horse,
"did your cousin get through it?"

"Oh, they were so hard on her!" cried Lady Temple. "I could hardly bring
myself to speak to Sir Edward after it! It was as if he thought it all
her fault!"

"Her evidence broke down completely," said Colonel Keith. "Sir Edward
spared her as much as he could; but the absurdity of her whole conduct
was palp