“Oh yes, I am very fanciful, I know I am; but if Harry would only be content, and let me be happy while I can,” said I, trying, but without success, to gulp down my tears. “Mrs. Langham, my dear, the Captain canna be content, and it stands to reason,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “and being anxious, as a good man should, to provide for his wife and his bairn, will no take him away an hour sooner than if he were a reckless ne’er-do-weel, that cared neither for the tane nor the tither. Be reasonable, and let him speak. He’s young and you’re young; and you’re neither o’ ye that wise but ye might thole mending. It’s a real, discreet, sensible thing o’ the young gentleman to try his very utmost for a home for his wife if he has to go away.” “If you have taken his side I shall give up speaking,” said I. “What do I care for home, or anything else, if he is away?” “But you care for the Captain’s peace of mind, Mrs. Langham, my dear,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “that’s far different. Maybe the truest love of a’ would make itself content to be left in splendour for the sake of a comfortable thought to them that’s going on a far different road. I wouldna say but the thought o’ your safety would lighten mony an hour of danger. Mony’s the strange thing I’ve seen in my life; but eh! when ye have them that ye maybe mayna have lang, gie them their will! Let him have his ain way, and gang in wi’ him if ye can. There’s mony a young wife like you would die cheerful, or do ony hard thing in the world for her husband, but canna see her way just to do _that_. Gie him his will! I was ower late learning that mysel’.” The very tone in which my good old lady spoke plunged me deeper and deeper into my agony of alarm and terror. I did not take her words for what they meant. I went aside to draw terrifying inferences from her tone and the sound of her voice. She thought he would go, I concluded--perhaps she had heard already that marching orders had come--she thought that he would never come back again, if he did leave me. Anxiety and fear seized hold upon me so forcibly that I never stopped to think that Mrs. Saltoun had no means of knowing, any more, or even so much as I knew, and that she could not possibly be better informed on this point than I was. “And now tell me about your family, Mrs. Langham, my dear. I’ve come across half the folk in the country, I might venture to say, one time and another. I was on the continent for three years with my old gentleman,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “it’s just astonishing to say such a thing, but if you’ll believe me, a person gets better acquaint with their own country folk, that is, meaning the higher ranks o’ life, in foreign parts than at home. It’s maybe just a glance and away, that’s true; but them that has good memories minds.” “And were you really abroad?” said I, feeling a little interested in spite of all my trouble; “and who was your old gentleman?--not----”