It must be curious to any one who, like our Lisa, had married a stranger and not an old acquaintance, to analyse afterwards the first impressions of a first meeting--most likely brought about by the merest chance. Curious to try and recall the face you then viewed critically, carelessly, or with the most absolute indifference--how it gradually altered and altered, till only by a special effort can memory reproduce the pristine image, and trace the process by which it has become what it is now--a face by itself, its peculiarities pleasant, its plainnesses sacred, and its beauties beautiful above all faces in the world. In the course of the afternoon, Colin was turned out, that is corporeally, for his mother talked about him the whole time of his absence, a natural weakness rather honourable than pardonable. She has been very long a widow, and never had any child but Colin. During our gossip, she asked me if we had seen Doctor Urquhart lately, and I said no. "Ah, that is just like him. Such an odd creature. He will keep away for days and weeks, and then turn up as unexpectedly, as he did here yesterday. By the by, he inquired after you--if you were better. Colin had told him you were ill." I testified my extreme surprise and denial of this. "Oh, but you looked ill. You were just like a ghost the day Mrs. Treherne was at Rockmount--my son noticed it ay, you need not flush up so angrily--it was only my Colin's anxiety about you--he was always fond of his old play-fellow." I smiled, and said his old play-fellow was very much obliged to him. So, this business is not so engrossing, but that Doctor Urquhart can find time to pay visits somewhere. And he had been inquiring for me. Still he might have made the inquiry at our own door. Ought people, even if they do lead a busy life, to forget ordinary courtesy--accepting hospitality, and neglecting it--cultivating acquaintance and then dropping it. I think not; all the respect in the world cannot make one put aside one's common sense judgment of another's actions. Perhaps the very respect makes one more tenacious that no single action should be even questionable. I did think, then, and even to-day I have thought sometimes, that Doctor Urquhart has been somewhat in the wrong towards us at Rockmount. But as to acknowledging it to any of them at home--never! Mrs. Granton discussed him a little, and spoke gratefully of Colin's obligations to him, and what a loss it would be for Colin when the regiment left the camp. "How fortunate that your brother-in-law sold out when he did. He could not well have done so now, when there is a report of their being ordered on active service shortly. Colin says we are likely to have war again, but I do hope not." "Yes," I said. And just then Colin came to fetch me to the greenhouses to choose a camellia for my hair.