We did not see Flora till the next morning. I knew that my Uncle Drummond's letter must be that in which he answered the news of Angus's escape, and I did not wonder if it unnerved her. She let me read it afterwards. The Laird and Lady Monksburn had plainly given up their son for ever when they heard what he had done. And knowing what I knew, I felt it was best so. I had to tell Flora my news:--to see the light die suddenly out of her dear brown velvet eyes,--will it ever come back again? And I wondered, watching her by the light of my own new-born happiness, whether Duncan Keith were as little to her as I had supposed. I knew, somewhat later, that I had misunderstood her, that we had misinterpreted her. Her one wish seemed to be to get back home. And Father said he would take her himself as far as the Border, if my Uncle Drummond would come for her to the place chosen. When the parting came, as we took our last kiss, I told her I prayed God bless her, and that some day she might be as happy as I was. There was a moment's flash in the brown eyes. "Take that wish back, Cary," she said, quietly. "Happy as you are, the woman whom Duncan Keith loved can never be, until she meet him again at the gates of pearl." "That may be a long while, dear." "It will be just so long as the Lord hath need of me," she answered: "and I hope, for his sake, that will be as long as my father needs me. And then--Oh, but it will be a blithe day when the call comes to go home!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Fells Farm, September 25th. Five months since I writ a word! And how much has happened in them--so much that I could never find time to set it down, and now I must do it just in a few lines. I have been married six weeks. Father shook his head with a smile when Ephraim first spoke to him, and said his lass was only in the cradle yesterday: but he soon came round. It was as quiet a wedding as Sophy's, and I am sure I liked it all the better, whatever other people might think. We are to live at the Fells Farm during the year of Ephraim's curacy, and then Father thinks he can easily get him a living through the interest of friends. Where it will be, of course we cannot guess. Flora has writ thrice since she returned home. She says my Uncle Drummond was very thankful to have her back again: but she can see that Lady Monksburn is greatly changed, and the Laird has so failed that he scarce seems the same man. Of herself she said nothing but one sentence,-- "Waiting, dear Cary,--always waiting." From Angus we do not hear a word. Mr Raymond and Annas are to be married when their year of mourning is out. I cannot imagine how they will get along--he a Whig clergyman, and she a Tory Presbyterian! However, that is their affair. I am rather thankful 'tis not mine.