s a
stimulant. When I looked at the young couple at Bishopsworthy, I often
felt as if another half-year of suspense was more than I could bear, and
that I must ask you to help me through with at least a definite hope."

"Ah! you have gone through a great deal I am sure it has been a time of
great trouble."

"Indeed it has. The suffering has become unceasing and often most
severe, and there is grievous depression of spirits; I could not have
left him even for a day, if he had not been so fervently bent on this."

"Is he feeling his loss more acutely than at first?"

"Not so much that, as for the poor little boy, who is a heavy burthen on
his mind. He has lived in such a state of shrewd distrust that he has
no power of confidence, and his complications for making all the boy's
guardians check one another till we come to a dead lock, and to make
provision for Isabel out of Menteith's reach, are enough to distract the
brain of a man in health."

"Is he fond of the child?"

"It is an oppressive care to him, and he only once has made up his mind
to see it, though it is never off his mind, and it is very curious how
from the first he has been resolved on your taking charge of it. It is
the most real testimony he could give you."

"It is very comfortable not to be brought in like an enemy in spite of
him, as even a year ago I could have been proud to do."

"And I to have brought you," he answered, "but it is far better as it
is. He is very cordial, and wants to give up the Auchinvar estate to me;
indeed, he told me that he always meant me to have it as soon as I had
washed my hands of you--you wicked syren--but I think you will agree
with me that he had better leave it to his daughter Mary, who has
nothing. We never reckoned on it."

"Nor on anything else," said Ermine, smiling.

"You have never heard my ways and means," he said, "and as a prudent
woman you ought, you know. See," taking out his tablets, "here is my
calculation."

"All that!"

"On the staff in India there were good opportunities of saving; then out
of that sum I bought the house, and with my half-pay, our income will be
very fair, and there would be a pension afterwards for you. This seems
to me all we can reasonably want."

"Unless I became like 'die Ilsebill' in the German tale. After four
years of living from hand to mouth, this will be like untold gold.
To wish to be above strict economy in wheeled chairs has seemed like
perilous discontent