Mr. Pendleton gave him an odd look. “There’s a saying about catching the hare first before you cook it,” said the doctor. “Make yourself quite sure they’ll give you a deal of trouble before they’ll let you take possession; and then there’s no end of money wanted for repairs. The last time I saw it, there was a hole that a man could pass through in the roof.” Harry looked aghast at this new piece of information; nothing that I ever saw had such an effect upon Harry’s courage. He gazed with open eyes and mouth at the disenchanter for a moment. I do think he could see the rain dropping in, and the wind blowing, and damp and decay spreading through the house just as clearly as I saw Miss Mortimer sitting by the fire, and myself going down the stairs. After that I used to think Harry was thinking of the house, whenever it rained much. He used to sigh, and look so grave, and say solemn things about the wet weather destroying property. And I cannot deny that I laughed. Altogether, this house kept us in talk and interest, and did a good deal to amuse us through this winter, which, without something to lighten it, would have passed very slowly, being so full of perpetual anxiety and fears. CHAPTER XIII. It was in spring that Harry came in one day with the news in his face; at least I thought it was the news. Heaven help me!--I came forward with my hands clasped, struck speechless by the thought, my limbs trembling under me so that I could scarcely stand. I suppose Harry was struck by my dumb agony. My ears, that were strained to hear the one only thing in the world that I was afraid of, devoured, without being satisfied, the soothing words he said to me. I gasped at him, asking, I suppose, without any sound, to know the worst; and he told me at once, in pity for my desperate face. “No such thing, Milly darling. No, no; not to the war just yet. We are only to leave Edinburgh, nothing more.” I think I almost fainted at this reprieve; I could scarcely understand it. The certainty of the other was so clear upon my mind that I almost could have thought he deceived me. I sank down into a seat when I came to myself, and cried in my weakness like a child; Harry all the while wondering over me in a surprise of love and pity. I do not think he quite knew till then how much that terror had gone to my heart. “No, Milly, darling,” he kept repeating, looking at me always with a strange compassion, as if he knew that the grief I was dreading must come, though not yet; “take comfort, it has not come yet; and before it comes you must be stronger, and able to bear what God sends.” “Yes, yes, yes, I will bear it,” said I, under my breath, “but say again it is not to be now.” “No, we are going away to Chester,” said Harry, “be satisfied, I will not try to cheat you when that time comes. We are to go to Chester to let some other fellows away. Now you must pack again and be going, Milly, like a true soldier’s wife.”