“And I’m keeping you all this time,” said Erminia, getting up, yet loth to go.  “When do you intend to come back?  Let us feel there is a fixed time.  America!  Why, it’s thousands of miles away.  Oh, Maggie!  Maggie!”

“I shall come back the next autumn, I trust,” said Maggie, comforting her friend with many a soft caress.  “Edward will be settled then, I hope.  You were longer in France, Minnie.  Frank was longer away that time he wintered in Italy with Mr. Monro.”

Erminia went slowly to the door.  Then she turned, right facing Maggie.

“Maggie! tell the truth.  Has my uncle been urging you to go?  Because if he has, don’t trust him; it is only to break off your engagement.”

“No, he has not, indeed.  It was my own thought at first.  Then in a moment I saw the relief it was to my mother—­my poor mother!  Erminia, the thought of her grief at Edward’s absence is the trial; for my sake, you will come often and often, and comfort her in every way you can.”

“Yes! that I will; tell me everything I can do for you.”  Kissing each other, with long lingering delay they parted.

Nancy would be informed of the cause of the commotion in the house; and when she had in some degree ascertained its nature, she wasted no time in asking further questions, but quietly got up and dressed herself; and appeared among them, weak and trembling, indeed, but so calm and thoughtful, that her presence was an infinite help to Maggie.

When day closed in, Edward stole down to the house once more.  He was haggard enough to have been in anxiety and concealment for a month.  But when his body was refreshed, his spirits rose in a way inconceivable to Maggie.  The Spaniards who went out with Pizarro were not lured on by more fantastic notions of the wealth to be acquired in the New World than he was.  He dwelt on these visions in so brisk and vivid a manner, that he even made his mother cease her weary weeping (which had lasted the livelong day, despite all Maggie’s efforts) to look up and listen to him.

“I’ll answer for it,” said he:  “before long I’ll be an American judge with miles of cotton plantations.”

“But in America,” sighed out his mother.

“Never mind, mother!” said he, with a tenderness which made Maggie’s heart glad.  “If you won’t come over to America to me, why, I’ll sell them all, and come back to live in England.  People will forget the scrapes that the rich American got into in his youth.”

“You can pay back Mr. Buxton then,” said his mother.

“Oh, yes—­of course,” replied he, as if falling into a new and trivial idea.

Thus the evening whiled away.  The mother and son sat, hand in hand, before the little glinting blazing parlor fire, with the unlighted candles on the table behind.  Maggie, busy in preparations, passed softly in and out.  And when all was done that could be done before going to Liverpool, where she hoped to have two days to prepare their outfit more completely, she stole back to her mother’s side.  But her thoughts would wander off to Frank, “working his way south through all the hunting-counties,” as he had written her word.  If she had not urged his absence, he would have been here for her to see his noble face once more; but then, perhaps, she might never have had the strength to go.