SIX months at least—­this is clearly not a story of the unities—­six months’ interval must now elapse before the wedding-day.  Charles and Emmy—­for he called her Emmy still, though Jeanie Mackie would persist in mouthing it to “Aamy,”—­wished to have it delayed a year, in respect for the memory of those who, with all their crime and folly, were not the less a mother and a brother:  but the general would not hear of such a thing; he was growing very old, he said; although actually he seemed to have taken out a new lease of life, so young again and buoyant was the new-found heart within him; and thus growing old, he was full of fatherly fear that he should not live to see his children’s happiness.  It was only reasonable and proper that our pair of cooing doves should acquiesce in his desire.

Meanwhile, I am truly sorry to say it, Jeanie Mackie died; for it would have been a good novel-like incident to have suffered the faithful old creature to have witnessed her favourite’s wedding, and then to have been forthwith killed out of the way, by—­perishing in the vestry.  However, things were ordered otherwise, and Jeanie Mackie did not live to see the wedding:  if you wish to know how and where she died, let me tell you at once.

Scotland—­Argyleshire—­Glenmuir; this was the focus of her hopes and thoughts—­that poor old Indian exile!  She had left it, as a buxom bright-haired lassie:  but oaks had now grown old that she had planted acorns; and grandmothers had died palsied, whom she remembered born; still, around the mountains and the lakes, those changeless features of her girlhood’s rugged home, the old woman’s memory wandered; they were pictured in her mind’s eye hard, and clear, and definite as if she looked upon them now.  And her soul’s deep hope was to see them once again.

There was yet another object which made her yearn for Scotland.  Lieutenant Stuart had been the younger of two brothers, the eldest born of whom became, upon his father’s, the old laird’s, death, Glenmuir and Glenmurdock.  Now, though twice married, this elder brother, the new laird, never had a child; and the clear consequence was, that Amy Stuart was likely to become sole heiress of her ancestor’s possessions.  The lieutenant’s marriage with an Italian and a Romanist had been, doubtless, any thing but pleasant to his friends; the strict old Presbyterians, and the proud unsullied family of Stuart, could not palate it at all.  Nevertheless, he did marry the girl, according to the rites of both churches, and there was an end of it; so, innumerable proverbs coming to their aid about “curing and enduring” and “must be’s,” and the place where “marriages are made,” &c., the several aunts and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant.  Of the offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie’s care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot may not be met with, so, with laudable nationality, they all hang together; and Glenmuir was written to frequently, all about the child, through Jeanie Mackie, “her mark,” and a scholarly sergeant, Duncan Blair.