."

"Oh, Alick, you will drive them both wild if you hurry it on."

"Look here. I believe I can get leave from Saturday till Tuesday. If I
can get a hearing in those two days, I shall try; and depend upon it,
Grace, this place is the worst that Rachel can be in."

"Can you come out here for three whole days? Oh, what a comfort!"

And 'what a comfort' was re-echoed by Mrs. Curtis, who had erected dear
Alexander to a pedestal of infallibility, and was always treated by him
with a considerate kindness that made her pity Fanny for the number of
years that must pass before Stephana could give her the supreme blessing
of a son-in-law. Fanny, on her side, had sufficient present blessing in
collecting her brood around her, after the long famine she had suffered,
and regretted only that this month had rendered Stephana's babyhood more
perceptibly a matter of the past; and that, in the distance, school days
were advancing towards Conrade, though it was at least a comfort that
his diphtheria had secured him at home for another half year, and the
Colonel had so much to think about that he had not begun his promised
researches into schools.

The long-looked-for letters came after a weary interval of expectation,
the more trying to Ermine because the weather had been so bitter that
Colin could not shake off his cold, nor venture beyond his own fireside,
where Rose daily visited him, and brought home accounts that did not
cheer her aunt.

Edward wrote shortly to his sister, as if almost annoyed at the shower
of letters that had by every post begun to recall his attention from
some new invention on the means of assaying metals:--

"I am sorry you have stirred up Keith to the renewal of this painful
subject. You know I considered that page in my life as closed for ever,
and I see nothing that would compensate for what it costs me even to
think of it. To redeem my name before the world would be of no avail
to me now, for all my English habits are broken, and all that made life
valuable to me is gone. If Long and Beauchamp could reject my solemn
affirmation three years ago, what would a retractation slowly wrung from
them be worth to me now? It might once have been, but that is all over
now. Even the desire to take care of you would no longer actuate me
since you have Keith again; and in a few years I hope to make my child
independent in money matters--independent of your love and care you
would not wish her to be. Forget the troub