Also there was Miss Jean’s friend the doctor, who would very willingly have made a sensible matrimonial alliance with a young person getting on so very well in the world--while Miss Jean’s nephew, he who had already calculated how many years it would take him to reach the elevation of Lord Mayor, worshipped in silence the divinity whom he durst no more approach than he durst propose for one of the princesses, knowing well that Miss Jean would bundle him indignantly out of doors at the merest whisper of such a presumption. But none of these things touched Kirsteen, nor would have done had they been much more attractive. “Will ye wait for me till I come back?” was the whisper which was always in her ears. And since the arrival of Robbie’s letter there had come a certain solidity and reality to that visionary bond. A man who was so near on the verge of return that in a year or two, “in two-three years” he might be back, was almost as close as if he were coming to-morrow--for what is next year but a big to-morrow to the faithful soul? The only feeling that ever marred for a moment the anticipation in Kirsteen’s mind was a fear that when he came he might be wounded a little by this mantua-making episode. It vexed her to think that this might be the case, and cast an occasional shadow upon her mind from which she was glad to escape as from the sight of a ghost. He might not like it--his mother, who was a proud woman, would not like it. Kirsteen did not, if she could help it, think of this possibility, yet it crossed her mind from time to time. And in the meantime in those weary years, the fortune that was for little Jeanie, and that which would make Ronald at ease even in his half-pay when he came back, was quietly growing. With such a business, the most fashionable in London, and customers praying almost on their knees to be put on the lists of Misses Brown and Kirsteen, how could it do otherwise than grow? Kirsteen was twenty-six, the season was at its climax, the workroom very _throng_ when Miss Jean came in one morning with the newspaper in her hand. Her little air of satisfaction when there were news that would be interesting to read was very well known. Miss Smith touched Miss Robinson with her elbow saying, “Look at ’er,” and Miss Robinson communicated to Miss Jones her conviction that there was something stirring in the paper. Miss Jean came in and took her seat at the lower end of the table with her back to the broad uncurtained window by which all possible light was admitted. She liked to have the light falling well upon her paper. “Now, my dears,” she said, “I am going to read something to you--it’s very touching, it’s an account of a battle.” “I thought all the battles were done,” said the forewoman who ventured to speak on such occasions.