olly keep from thrilling in his tones, as he at
last proclaimed his right to love and to cherish her for whom he had so
long persevered.

Unobserved, he filled up the half-written despatch with the same pen
with which he signed the register, and sent Conrade to the door with
it to his already mounted messenger. Then assuming Edward's place as
Ermine's supporter, he led her to the door, seated her in her wheeled
chair, and silently handing Rachel's note as his explanation to Alison,
he turned away, and walked alone by Ermine's side to his own house.
Still silent, he took her into the bright drawing-room he had so long
planned for her, and seated her in her own peculiar chair. Then his
first words were, "Thank God for this!"

She knew his face. "Colin, your brother is worse?" He bent his head, he
could not speak.

"And you have to go to him! This very day?"

"Ermine, you must decide. You are at last my first duty!"

"That means that you know you ought to go. Tell me what it is."

He told the substance of the note, ending with, "If you could come with
me!"

"I would if I should not be a tie and hindrance. No, I must not do that;
but here I am, Colin, here I am. And it is all true--it has all come
right at last! All we waited for. Nothing has ever been like this."

She was the stronger. Tears, as much of loving thankfulness as of
overflowing disappointment, rushed into his eyes at such a fulfilment of
the purpose that he had carried with him by sea and land, in battle
and sickness, through all the years of his manhood. And withal her one
thought was to infuse in its strongest measure the drop of happiness
that was to sustain him through the scenes that awaited him, to make him
feel her indeed his wife, and to brighten him with the sunbeam face that
she knew had power to cheer him. Rallying her playfulness, she took off
her bonnet, and said as she settled her hair, "There, that is being at
home! Take my shawl, yes, and these white gloves, and put them out of
sight, that I may not feel like a visitor, and that you may see how I
shall look when you come back. Do you know, I think your being out of
the way will be rather a gain, for there will be a tremendous feminine
bustle with the fitting of our possessions."

Her smile awoke a responsive look, and she began to gaze round and
admire, feeling it safest to skim on the surface; and he could not
but be gratified by her appreciation of the pains spent upon this, her
es