"And it was by your brother's earnest wish," said Ermine; "it was not as if you had stayed away for your own pleasure."
"No! Poor Keith repeatedly said he could not die in peace till he had secured our having the sole charge of his son. It was a strong instinct that conquered inveterate prejudice! Did I tell you about the will?"
"You said I should hear particulars when you came."
"The personal guardianship is left to us first, then to Alick and Rachel, with £300 a year for the expenses. Then we have Auchinvar. The estate is charged with an equivalent settlement upon Mary, a better plan, which I durst not propose, but with so long a minority the estate will bear it. Alick has his sister's fortune back again, and the Menteith children a few hundreds; but Menteith is rabid about the guardianship, and would hardly speak to Alick."
"And you?"
"They always keep the peace with me. Isabel even made us a wedding present--a pair of miniatures of my father and mother, that I am very glad to rescue, though, as she politely told me, I was welcome to them, for they were hideously dressed, and she wanted the frames for two sweet photographs of Garibaldi and the Queen of Naples."
Then looking up as if to find a place for them--
"Why, Ermine, what have you done to the room? It is the old parsonage drawing-room!"
"Did not you mean it, when you took the very proportions of the bay window, and chose just such a carpet?"
"But what have you done to it?"
"Ailie and Rose, and Lady Temple and her boys, have done it. I have sat looking on, and suggesting. Old things that we kept packed up have seen the light, and your beautiful Indian curiosities have found their corners."
"And the room has exactly the old geranium scent!"
"I think the Curtises must have brought half their greenhouse down. Do you remember the old oak-leaf geranium that you used to gather a leaf of whenever you passed our old conservatory?"
"I have been wondering where the fragrance came from that made the likeness complete. I have smelt nothing like it since!"
"I said that I wished for one, and Grace got off without a word, and searched everywhere at Avoncester till she found one in a corner of the Dean's greenhouse. There, now you have a leaf in your fingers, I think you do feel at home."
"Not quite, Ermine. It still has the dizziness of a dream. I have so often conjured up all this as a vision, that now there is nothing to take me away from it, I can hardly feel it a reality."
"Then I shall ring. Tibbie and the poor little Lord upstairs are substantial witnesses to the cares and troubles of real life."
CHAPTER XXX. WHO IS THE CLEVER WOMAN?
"Half-grown as yet, a child and vain, She cannot fight the fight of death. What is she cut from love and faith? Knowledge and Wisdom, TENNYSON.
It was long before the two Mrs. Keiths met again. Mrs. Curtis and Grace were persuaded to spend the spring and summer in Scotland, and Alick's leave of absence was felt to be due to Mr. Clare, and thus it was that the first real family gathering took place on occasion of the opening of the institution that had grown out of the Burnaby Bargain. This work had cost Colonel Keith and Mr. Mitchell an infinity of labour and perseverance before even the preliminaries could be arranged, but they contrived at length to carry it out, and by the fourth spring after the downfall of the F. U. E. E. a house had been erected for the convalescents, whose wants were to be attended to by a matron, assisted by a dozen young girls in training for service.
The male convalescents were under the discipline of Sergeant O'Brien and the whole was to be superintended by Colonel and Mrs. Keith. Ermine undertook to hear a class of the girls two or three times a week, and lower rooms had been constructed with a special view to her being wheeled into them, so as to visit the convalescents, and give them her attention and sympathy. Mary Morris was head girl, most of the others were from Avonmouth, but two pale Londoners came from Mr. Touchett's district, and a little motherless lassie from the -th Highlanders was brought down with the nursery establishment, on which Mrs. Alexander Keith now practised the "Hints on the management of Infants."
May was unusually propitious, and after an orthodox tea-drinking, the new pupils and all the Sunday-schools were turned out to play on the Homestead slopes, with all the world to look on at them. It was a warm, brilliant day, of joyous blossom and lively green, and long laughing streaks of sunlight on the sea, and no one enjoyed it more than did Ermine, as she sat in her chair delighting in the fresh sweetness of the old thorns, laughing at the freaks of the scampering groups of children, gaily exchanging pleasant talk with one friend after another, and most of all with Rachel, who seemed to gravitate back to her whenever any summons had for a time interrupted their affluence of conversation.
And all the time Ermine's footstool was serving as a table for the various flowers that two children were constantly gathering in the grass and presenting to her, to Rachel, or to each other, with a constant stream of not very comprehensible prattle, full of pretty gesticulation that seemed to make up for the want of distinctness. The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, though the elder of the two, dutifully and admiringly obeyed the more distinct, though less connected, utterances of the little dark-eyed girl, eked out by pretty imperious gestures, that seemed already to enchain the little white-frocked cavalier to her service. All the time it was droll to see how the two ladies could pay full attention to the children, while going on with their own unbroken stream of talk.
"I am not overwhelming you," suddenly exclaimed Rachel, checking herself in mid-career about the mothers' meetings for the soldiers' wives.
"Far from it. Was I inattentive--?"
"Oh no--(Yes, Una dear, very pretty)--but I found myself talking in the voice that always makes Alick shut his eyes."-
"I should not think he often had to do so," said Ermine, much amused by this gentle remedy--("Mind, Keith, that is a nettle. It will sting--")
"Less often than before," said Rachel--("Never mind the butterfly, Una)--I don't think I have had more than one thorough fit of what he calls leaping into the gulf. It was about the soldiers' wives married without leave, who, poor things, are the most miserable creatures in the world; and when I first found out about them I was in the sort of mood I was in about the lace, and raved about the system, and was resolved to employ one poor woman, and Alick looked meeker and meeker, and assented to all I said, as if he was half asleep, and at last he quietly took up a sheet of paper, and said he must write and sell out, since I was bent on my gulf, and an officer's wife must be bound by the regulations of the service. I was nearly as bad as ever, I could have written an article on the injustice of the army regulations, indeed I did begin, but what do you think the end was? I got a letter from a good lady, who is always looking after the poor, to thank Mrs. Alexander Keith for the help that had been sent for this poor woman, to be given as if from the general fund. After that I could not help listening to him, and then I found it was so impossible to know about character, or to be sure that one was not doing more harm than--What is it, boys?" as three or four Temples rushed up.
"Aunt Rachel, Mr. Clare is going to teach us a new game, and he says you know it. Pray come."
"Come, Una. What, Keith, will you come too? I'll take care of him, Ermine."
And with a child in each hand, Rachel followed the deputation, and had scarcely disappeared before the light gracious figure of Rose glanced through the thorn trees. "Aunt Ermine, you must come nearer; it is so wonderful to see Mr. Clare teaching this game."