“Oh!” they said again together, looking at each other. Rosmore was far more splendid than anything they had imagined. They had been with their aunt down to a cottage on the peninsula for the benefit of what Mrs. Brown picturesquely called “the salt water,” _i.e._, the sea-bathing: so they knew something of what it was. It was very grand, but perhaps a little oppressive to imaginations accustomed only to the cottage. Their eyes, looking at each other, had a question in them. They were overawed, but a little frightened too. “I suppose--there will be a carriage, or a gig, or something. It is a long, long way up from the pier.” “There will, I hope, be carriages enough for anything that is required, and horses to ride, and most things that may be found necessary. Archie, I hope,” said the father, unconsciously replying to Marion, “can ride?” At this the boy burst into a great laugh. “I do not know, for I never did try,” he half sang, half said, with a big voice, inclining to be bass, but uncertain yet. His face grew red and his eyes shone. He communicated his pleasure to his sister by a look, but this time she did not respond. “And I----” she said, with a contraction of her soft girlish forehead, “will have to bide at home.” “No,” said Rowland, feeling at last a little pleasure in the idea of changing so entirely the lives of his children, and surrounding them with every good thing, “you will find plenty of pleasant things to do. But,” he added, pausing, “what will become of the poor Aunt Jane if I take you both away?” They looked at each other again, and repeated in different tones the same “Oh!” Marion uttered that exclamation with a toss of her head, and a tone of indifference. “Aunty has made plenty out of us,” she said. Archie here, for the first time, took the words out of her mouth. “She has aye expected it,” he said. “It would vex her more if you didn’t take us.” “Are you sure of that? She has been like a mother to you.” “But mothers expect,” said Archie, “that their families should go away.” Marion shrugged her little shoulders. “She’ll be free then to go to the saut water or wherever she likes,” she said, “and not say she is doing this or doing that, not for herself, but for him and me.” “Then you are not sorry to leave her solitary?” said Rowland. They consulted each other again with their eyes, with a sort of frank surprise at the question. “Oh, she’ll have her friends,” said Marion; and she added, “It could never be thought that we would stay here with her, when our papa had come and was wanting us, and a grand house and horses and carriages. That’s very different from Sauchiehall Road.” Archie looked as if he saw something more in the question--but he did not say anything. He was slow of expression, and perhaps not even so nimble of thought as his sister. He looked, however, a little wistfully at his father, studying his countenance. “And what will become of her?” Rowland said.