life had been spent, and which, with Edinburgh, and a peep of London, made up the world to the veteran. And the light had actually begun to wane in the short afternoon, when it suddenly occurred to Uncle Edward that he was forgetting himself, and that he must face the blast again to find his inn. A momentary austerity came into his face as he recollected this, and, rising hastily, begged of Horace to show him or to tell him the way to the nearest village. The nearest village worthy the name was five miles off; there was a miserable little hamlet nearer, with a miserable little public house, but that Uncle Edward shrugged his shoulders at. "Can Susan walk five miles in a good day?" said the Colonel, smiling. "Then come along, my boy--we'll go there." CHAPTER VIII. A walk of five miles on that dismal February afternoon was not a pleasure excursion; nor was it pleasant to look back upon poor Susan's face at the window--flushed, tearful, ashamed, mortified, Susan had not experienced an equal vexation in the whole course of her life. To think of Uncle Edward having to go away through the damp and twilight five miles off to find a lodging! Uncle Edward, who had come closer to Susan's heart in half-an-hour than all the rest of the world in all her life! When they were out of sight she subsided into the arm-chair and had a good cry over it, and then went to talk to Peggy, who was actively furious, relieving herself by incomprehensible ejaculations. Still somehow, mortified and vexed as she was, there was all the promise of a new life remaining for Susan. Uncle Edward would return to-morrow; so long as he stayed he would see them every day--and the idea disturbed the stagnant atmosphere, and diffused an indescribable cheerfulness through the house. Even Peggy, though she fumed, was exhilarated by the thought--perhaps on the whole, it was even better that the Colonel's tender, honest heart should not be grieved by the sight of the ghost of family life existing here. So long as he did not see it to make himself wretched with the view, Uncle Edward's sweet and healthful imagination could conceive of no such scene as Mr. Scarsdale's dinner, or the evening hours which followed it. And then he was coming back to-morrow! So Susan took her presents upstairs, and fell wondering and dreaming over them, making impossible fancy scenes of cheerful rooms and pleasant people, and smiles, and flowers, and kindness unknown. Somehow whispers of all these delightful things seemed to breathe out of that pretty muslin, with its graceful wreaths of embroidery. The horizon opened to her awakened girlish fancy, far off, and almost inconceivable, yet with a vague brightness of possibility--and Susan spent an hour arranging her new riches in the drawer, which was the only scene they were likely to enlighten at present, and making herself happy with her novel thoughts.