"Your room is prepared--you have been expected," said Scarsdale, awaking, not only to the reproach of sending a stranger away, which, distant as he was from the opinions of the world, touched him still, but to the vexation of being resisted. "My daughter, so far as looks can express it, has been expecting you eagerly. I beg you to reconsider your decision--nay, I entreat, I insist that you should remain." "Too late for that," said the Colonel, with a smile and a bow; "but I will not detain you from your studies. Susan, I believe, has some refreshment ready for her old uncle. I will not carry a punctilio of welcome so far as not to break bread in your house; but I will bid you now, and finally, good-bye." So saying, the old soldier made a superb bow, and, without lifting his eyes again to his churlish host to see how he took it, turned round on his heel and left the room. In the hall he encountered Peggy waiting for him, who, familiar in her anxiety, laid her hand upon his sleeve, and stretched up on tiptoe to whisper her anxious interrogation into the Colonel's deaf ear. He waved his hand to her with an assumed carelessness, which he was far from feeling. "We should not 'gree, Peggy, if I stayed a day," he said, familiarly, and with a smile. "You must direct me to the next village, where I can get a bed and a dinner--for I will not leave the quarter till I know my sister's bairns." "But ye'll not forsake them; say you'll never go away till he promises their rights," cried Peggy, in a whispered shriek. The Colonel shook his head, and put her aside with his hand. "If I can do anything for them, I will," he said briefly; and so went into the dining-room, where Susan waited, trembling for the issue of this scene: while Peggy, retiring to her kitchen in fierce disappointment and mortification, threw her apron over her head and wept a sudden torrent of hot tears; then comforting herself, repeated over his words, wiped her tears, and carried in the luncheon. She would not lose faith in her favourite with so short a trial. Daylight, good sense, common affection did but need to breathe into this morbid house, and all might yet be right. CHAPTER VII.