“Rivers that will carry me--where?” she cried in a tone half of laughter, half of despair. “Listen to me, my darling,” he said. “We will be practical: there is always the poetry to fall back upon. For one thing, I’ve no house, even if it were up a common stair or in the highest house of the old town, to take you to. Houses, as you know as well as me, can only be got at the term. There is no chance now till Whit-Sunday of finding one. We must just be patient, Lily; we can do no more. It is not you, my darling, that will suffer the most. Think of me in all the old places that will mind me of you at every moment, and seeing all the folk that know you, and even hearing your name----” “Oh,” cried Lily, and then suddenly she fell a-crying, leaning on her husband, “I would like to hear your name now and then just to give me heart, and to see the folk that know you, and the old places----” “My bonnie Lily!” he cried. Perhaps this outburst did her good. She cried for a long time, and all the evening an occasional sob interrupted her voice, like the lingering passion of a child. But Lily, like a child, had to yield to that voice of the practical, the voice of reason. She said no more at least, but sadly assisted at the packing of the portmanteau, which had been brought across the snow somehow from the cottage in which Ronald had found refuge before the storm and all its privileges began. “I am not going with him,” she said to Robina, when these doleful preparations were over. “You see, there are no preparations made, and you cannot get a house between the terms. You might have minded me of that, Beenie. What is the use of being a person of experience if you cannot tell folk that are apt to forget?” “I ought to have minded, my bonnie dear,” said Beenie with penitence. “And it’s a long time till Whit-Sunday; but we’ll need to have patience,” Lily said. “So we will, my darling bairn,” Beenie replied. “You say that very cut and dry. You are not surprised; you look as if you had known it all the time.” “Eh, Miss Lily, my dear, how could I help but ken? Here’s a young gentleman that has little siller, and no the mate that Sir Robert would choose.” “I wish,” cried Lily, “that Sir Robert was at the bottom of the sea! No, no, I’m wishing him no harm, but, oh, if he only had nothing to do with me!”