“Hoot,” Mrs. Ogilvie said, “there is always this to do, that you must marry and settle; that is the right thing for a young man. To be sure, when there is no place to take a wife home to, but just to follow the regiment, that’s very different; for parents that are in their senses would never let a girl do that. But when you have the house first, then the wife must follow. It is just the right order of things.” “For some men,” said Ronald, “but not for me; it is either too early, or, perhaps, too late.” “Oh, too late! a lad like you to speak such nonsense!--and there’s never any saying what may happen,” the lady said. This strange speech made two hearts beat: Ronald’s with great surprise, and devouring curiosity. Had he perhaps been premature in thinking that all was settled--was it a mistake? But oh, no, he remembered that he had made his congratulations, and they had been received; that Eric was coming back to the marriage; that already the wedding guests were being invited, and all was in train. Effie’s heart beat too, where she sat silent at a distance, close to the lamp, on pretence of needing light for her work; but it was with a muffled, melancholy movement, no sign of hope or possibility in it, only the stir of regret and trouble over what might have been. “Are you going to write letters, at this time of night?” said Mr. Ogilvie, as he came back from the door, after seeing Ronald away. “Just one, Robert; I cannot bear this suspense if the rest of you can. I am going to write to my cousin John, who is a business man, and has his office, as his father had before him, in Basinghall Street in London city. I am going to ask him a question or two.” “If I were you,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with some energy, “I would neither make nor meddle in other folk’s affairs.” “What do you call other folk’s affairs? It is my own folk’s affairs. If there ever was a thing that was our business and not another’s, it’s this. Do you think I would ever permit--and there is very little time to be lost. I wonder I never thought of John before--he is just the person to let me know.” Mr. Ogilvie put his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the room in great perturbation. “I cannot see my way to making that kind of inquiry. It might do harm, and I don’t see what good it can do. It might set people thinking. It might bring on just what we’re wanting to avoid.” “I am wanting to know, that is all,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “As for setting people thinking, that’s done as you’re aware. And if it’s done down here, what must it be in the city? But I must be at the bottom of it, whether it’s false, or whether it’s true.” Mr. Ogilvie was not accustomed to such energy. He said, “Tchk, tchk, tchk,” as people do so often in perplexity: and then he caught sight of his daughter, holding Rory’s little stocking in the lamplight, and knitting with nervous fingers. It was a good opportunity for getting rid of the irritation which any new thing raised in him.