Colin smiled and said, “Isabel does not easily accept an answer she dislikes.”
“But remember, both of you,” continued Lord Keith, “that happen what may, this poor child is not to be in her charge. I’ve seen enough of her children left alone in perambulators in the sun. You will be in Edinburgh?” he added, turning to Rachel.
“Yes, when Alick’s leave ends.”
“I shall return thither when this matter is over, I know I shall be better at home in Scotland, and if I winter in Edinburgh, may be we could make some arrangement for his being still under your eye.”
Rachel went home more elevated than she had been for months past.
XXIX
At Last
“I bid thee hail, not as in former days,
A. H. Hallam
Not as my chosen only, but my bride,
My very bride, coming to make my house
A glorious temple.”
“Timber End, Littleworthy, .
“Dear Miss Williams—I must begin by entreating your forgiveness for addressing you in a manner for which perhaps you may be unprepared; but I trust you have always been aware, that any objections that I may have offered to my brother Colin’s attachment to yourself have never been personal, or owing to anything but an unfortunate complication of circumstances. These difficulties are, as no doubt he will explain to you, in great measure removed by the present condition of my family, which will enable me to make such settlements as I could wish in the ease of one so nearly connected with me; so that I am enabled to entreat of you at length to reward the persevering constancy so well deserved. I have a further, and a personal cause for wishing that the event should not be deferred, as regard for my feelings might have led you to propose. You are aware of the present state of my health, and that it has become expedient to make immediate arrangements for the future guardianship of my little boy. His uncles are of course his natural guardians, and I have unbounded confidence in both; but Alexander Keith’s profession renders it probable that he may not always be at hand, and I am therefore desirous of being able to nominate yourself, together with my brother, among the personal guardians. Indeed, I understand from Alexander Keith, that such was the express wish of his sister. I mention this as an additional motive to induce you to consent. For my own part, even without so stringent a cause, all that I have ever seen or known of yourself would inspire me with the desire that you should take a mother’s place towards my son. But you must be aware that such an appointment could only be made when you are already one of the family, and this it is that leads me to entreat you to overlook any appearance of precipitancy on my brother’s part, and return a favourable reply to the request, which with my complete sanction, he is about to address to you.
“Yes, Ermine Williams, forgive all that is past, and feel for an old, it may be, a dying man, and for a motherless infant. There is much to forget, but I trust to your overcoming any scruples, and giving me all the comfort in your power, in thinking of the poor child who has come into the world under such melancholy circumstances.
“Poor Keith, he has given me his letter open, his real anxiety has been too much at last for his dignity; and now, my Ermine, what do you say to his entreaty? The state of the case is this. How soon this abscess may be ready for the operation is still uncertain, the surgeons think it will be in about three weeks, and in this interval he wishes to complete all his arrangements. In plain English, his strongest desire is to secure the poor little boy from falling into Menteith’s hands. Now, mine is a precarious life, and Alick and Rachel may of course be at the ends of the earth, so the point is that you shall be ‘one of the family,’ before the will is signed. Alick’s leave has been extended to the 1st of October, no more is possible, and he undertakes to nurse poor Keith for a fortnight from tomorrow, if you will consent to fulfil this same request within that time. After the 1st, I should have to leave you, but as soon as Keith is well enough to bear the journey, he wishes to return to Edinburgh, where he would be kindly attended to by Alick and Rachel all the winter. There, Ermine, your victory is come, your consent has been entreated at last by my brother, not for my sake, but as a personal favour to himself, because there is no woman in the world of whom he thinks so highly. For myself I say little. I grieve that you should be thus hurried and fluttered, and if Ailie thinks it would harm you, she must telegraph back to me not to come down, and I will try to teach myself patience by preaching it to Keith, but otherwise you will see me by four o’clock tomorrow. Every time I hear Rachel’s name, I think it ought to have been yours, and surely in this fourteenth year, lesser objections may give way. But persuasions are out of the question, you must be entirely led by your own feeling. If I could have seen you in July, this should not have come so suddenly at last.
Colonel Keith followed his letter at four o’clock, and entering his own study, found it in a cloud of smoke, in the midst of which he dimly discerned a long beard and
