“I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so pressing, I could not have stayed away.” “The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think of coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we managed very well without you.” “Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you would have told me.” “He will be coming himself,” said Ermine, resolved against again expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing. “Nothing could be more satisfactory than Beauchamp’s letter,” added Colin. “He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began to believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been overruled.” “I dare say,” said Ermine, laughing; “I can quite fancy honest Harry completely persuaded that he was Edward’s champion, while Maddox was turning him round his finger.” “And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe the same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his hopes that you would some day come and see the old place. He made his wife quite cordial.” Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine could freely say, “Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He would be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place look?” “Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one’s teeth on edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get him off duty--without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast.” “And there, judging from Julia’s letter, they must have nearly devoured you.” “They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you, Ermine?” “Oh, Colin!” exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she became ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, “Perhaps not so very.” “She was very gracious to me,” said Colin, smiling, “and we had much pleasant talk of you.” “Yes,” said Ermine, “it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently convinced.” “More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter, and seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could not be so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox’s representation.” “That is true,” said Alison, “he held out till Edward refused to come home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf.” “And it will be so again,” thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart. Then she asked, “Did you see whether there was a letter for you at home?” “Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at, from Bessie.” “From Paris?”