He could not wait for any judgment; he could not think of any vow. A burst of weeping, such as might have hailed the prodigal’s return, followed the simple speech of Hope. The living love within him burst through its perverse and unseemly garments; and those peaceful walls, unused to great emotion, had never heard such a cry as broke through them now, from lips that trembled as the great king’s did of old, when he too wept for his Absalom. “My son! my son!” CHAPTER IX. “I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars.”--BURNS. “Oh, Hope, Alick’s come,” exclaimed Adelaide Fendie one bright August day, as she alighted from the nondescript gig driven by John Brown, and went with her arm linked in her friend’s into the banker’s sober dining-room. “Mamma is so glad--we’re all so glad--Alick’s come.” “And, Hope,” added Victoria, “somebody else is come too. It’s the sword and cocked hat that Tibbie saw at Hallowe’en. Oh, Hope, if you only saw him!” “Who is it, Adelaide?” asked Hope. “It’s--Alick’s come,” said the slow Adelaide with her dull blush, “mamma is so glad, Hope; and we’re to have a ball and parties--I don’t know how many--and Mossgray and young Mr Graeme are coming to dine to-morrow, and next week we are going to Mossgray--because Miss Maxwell will never go out anywhere now you know, and Mr Graeme wants to have Alick and me,” added Adelaide, with a dignified consciousness of having reached the full years of young ladyhood. “I’m to go too.” “Will Mossgray ask you, Hope?” inquired Victoria. “Hope is too young,” said Adelaide, in her new dignity. “Doesn’t mamma tell you, Victoria, not to talk about things you don’t understand? but though you’re too young to go out to parties yet, Hope, you’re to come up and see Alick: and there’s Alick’s friends too, you know.” Hope was offended. She was full fifteen, and thought herself a very mature womanly person, so she condescended to ask no further questions about Alick’s friends, though Victoria’s malicious laugh, and the dull consciousness of Adelaide, made Hope a little curious; but Hope’s mind was occupied with things of very much more importance than cocked hats or swords. “Adelaide, does Alick know about Peter Delvie? oh, Mr Insches says perhaps it is not true--and poor Saunders!--does Alick know anything, Adelaide; does Alick think it is true?” “Hope! do you think our Alick knows anything about Peter Delvie?” “If he does not it is very bad of him,” said Hope boldly; “for Peter is a Fendie man--they were both Fendie men away in yon great India; but did you not ask him, Adelaide? did you not think of poor Saunders when Alick came home?” “I forgot, Hope,” said Adelaide, more humbly. “Will you not forget to-day then? will _you_ mind, Victoria? and I will come up to the Mount to-morrow to hear; for Saunders thinks he is dead; oh, Adelaide, if he only were living to come back again!”