'Nay, Tibbie, if you find fault with such a sweet, winning young creature, I shall think it is all because you will not endure a mistress at Gowanbrae over you.'
'His lordship'll please himsel' wi' a leddy to be mistress o' Gowanbrae, but auld Tibbie'll never cross the doorstane mair.'
'Indeed you will, Tibbie; here are my brother's orders that you should go down, as soon as you can conveniently make ready, and see about the new plenishing.'
'They may see to the plenishing' that's to guide it after han, an' that'll no be me. My lord'll behove to tak' his orders aff his young leddy ance he's married on her, may be a whilie afore, but that's no to bind ither folk, an' it's no to be thought that at my years I'm to be puttin' up wi' a' ther new fangled English fykes an' nonsense maggots. Na, na, Maister Colin, his lordship'll fend weel aneugh wantin' Tibbie; an' what for suld I leave yerself, an' you settin' up wi' a house o' yer ain? Deed an' my mind's made up, I'll e'en bide wi' ye, an' nae mair about it.'
'Stay, stay,' cried Colin, a glow coming into his cheeks, 'don't reckon without your host, Tibbie. Do you think Gowanbrae the second is never to have any mistress but yourself?'
'Haud awa' wi' ye, laddie, I ken fine what ye'ra ettlin' at, but yon's a braw leddy, no like thae English folk, but a woman o' understandin', an' mair by token I'm thinkin' she'll be gleg aneugh to ken a body that'll serve her weel, an' see to the guidin' o' thae feckless queens o' servant lasses, for bad's the best o' them ye'll fin' hereawa'. Nae fear but her an' me'll put it up weel thegither, an' a' gude be wi' ye baith.'
After this Colin resigned himself and his household to Tibbie's somewhat despotic government, at least for the present. To Ermine's suggestion that her appellation hardly suited the dignity of her station, he replied that Isabel was too romantic for southern ears, and that her surname being the same as his own, he was hardly prepared to have the title of Mrs. Keith pre-occupied. So after Mrs. Curtis's example, the world for the most part knew the colonel's housekeeper as Mrs. Tibbs.
She might be a tyrant, but liberties were taken with her territory; for almost the first use that the colonel made of his house was to ask a rheumatic sergeant, who had lately been invalided, to come and benefit by the Avonmouth climate. Scottish hospitality softened Tibbie's heart, and when she learnt that Sergeant O'Brien had helped to carry Master Colin into camp after his wound, she thought nothing too good for him. The Colonel then ventured to add to the party an exemplary consumptive tailor from Mr. Mitchell's parish, who might yet be saved by good living and good air. Some growls were elicited, but he proved to be so deplorably the ninetieth rather than the ninth part of a man, that Tibbie made it her point of honour to fatten him; and the sergeant found him such an intelligent auditor of the Indian exploits of the --th Highlanders that mutual respect was fully established, and high politeness reigned supreme, even though the tailor could never be induced to delight in the porridge, on which the sergeant daily complimented the housekeeper in original and magnificent metaphors.
Nor had the Colonel any anxieties in leaving the representatives of the three nations together while he went to attend his brother's wedding. He proposed that Tibbie should conduct Rose for the daily walk of which he had made a great point, thinking that the child did not get exercise enough, since she was so averse to going alone upon the esplanade that her aunt forbore to press it. She manifested the same reluctance to going out with Tibbie, and this the Colonel ascribed to her fancying herself too old to be under the charge of a nurse. It was trying to laugh her out of her dignity, but without eliciting an answer, when, one afternoon just as they were entering together upon the esplanade, he felt her hand tighten upon his own with a nervous frightened clutch, as she pressed tremulously to his side.
'What is it, my dear? That dog is not barking at you. He only wants to have a stick thrown into the sea for him.'
'Oh not the dog! It was--'
'Was, what?'
'HIM!' gasped Rose.
'Who?' inquired the Colonel, far from prepared for the reply, in a terrified whisper,--
'Mr. Maddox.'
'My dear child! Which, where?'
'He is gone! he is past. Oh, don't turn back! Don't let me see him again.'
'You don't suppose he could hurt you, my dear.'
'No,' hesitated Rose, 'not with you.'
'Nor with any one.'
'I suppose not,' said Rose, common sense reviving, though her grasp was not relaxed.
'Would it distress you very much to try to point him out to me?' said the Colonel, in his irresistibly sweet tone.
'I will. Only keep hold of my hand, pray,' and the little hand trembled so much that he felt himself committing a cruel action in leading her along the esplanade, but there was no fresh start of recognition, and when they had gone the whole length, she breathed more freely, and said, 'No, he was not there.'
Recollecting how young she had been at the time of Maddox's treason, the Colonel began to doubt if her imagination had not raised a bugbear, and he questioned her, 'My dear, why are you so much afraid, of this person? What do you know about him?'
'He told wicked stories of my papa,' said Rose, very low.
'True, but he could not hurt you. You don't think he goes about like Red Ridinghood's wolf?'
'No, I am not so silly now.'
'Are you sure you know him? Did you often see him in your papa's house?'
'No, he was always in the laboratory, and I might not go there.'
'Then you see, Rose, it must he mere fancy that you saw him, for you could not even know him by sight.'
'It was not fancy,' said Rose, gentle and timid as ever, but still obviously injured at the tone of reproof.
'My dear child,' said Colonel Keith, with some exertion of patience, 'you must try to be reasonable. How can you possibly recognise a man that you tell me you never saw?'
'I said I never saw him in the house,' said Rose with a shudder; 'but they said if ever I told they would give me to the lions in the Zoological Gardens.'
'Who said so?'
'He, Mr. Maddox and Maria,' she answered, in such trepidation that he could scarcely hear her.
'But you are old and wise enough now to know what a foolish and wicked threat that was, my dear.'
'Yes, I was a little girl then, and knew no better, and once I did tell a lie when mamma asked me, and now she is dead, and I can never tell her the truth.'
Colin dreaded a public outbreak of the sobs that heaved in the poor child's throat, but she had self-control enough to restrain them till he had led her into his own library, where he let her weep out her repentance for the untruth, which, wrested from her by terror, had weighed so long on her conscience. He felt that he was sparing Ermine something by receiving the first tempest of tears, in the absolute terror and anguish of revealing the secret that had preyed on her with mysterious horror.
'Now tell me all about it, my dear little girl. Who was this Maria?'
'Maria was my nurse when I lived at home. She used to take me out walking,' said Rose, pressing closer to his protecting breast, and pausing as though still afraid of her own words.
'Well,' he said, beginning to perceive, 'and was it than that you saw this Maddox?'
'Yes, he used to come and walk with us, and sit under the trees in Kensington Gardens with her. And sometimes he gave me lemon-drops, but they said if ever I told, the lions should have me. I used to think I might be saved like Daniel; but after I told the lie, I knew I should not. Mamma asked me why my fingers were sticky, and I did say it was from a lemon-drop, but there were Maria's eyes looking at me; oh, so dreadful, and when mamma asked who gave it to me, and Maria said, 'I did, did not I, Miss Rose?' Oh, I did not seem able to help saying 'yes.''
'Poor child! And you never dared to speak of it again?'
'Oh, no! I did long to tell; but, oh, one night it was written up in letters of fire, 'Beware of the Lions.''
'Terror must have set you dreaming, my dear.'
'No,' said Rose, earnestly. 'I was quite awake. Papa and mamma were gone out to dine and sleep, and Maria would put me to bed half an hour too soon. She read me to sleep, but by-and-by I woke up, as I always did at mamma's bed time, and the candle was gone, and there were those dreadful letters in light over the door.'
She spoke with such conviction that he became persuaded that all was not delusion, and asked what she
