“Not at all, it is choosing between right and wrong.”

“And Ermine, if—­if I should be ill, you must not think of coming near me.  Rose must not be left alone.”

“There is no use in talking of such things,” said Ermine, resolutely, “let us think of what must be thought of, not of what is in the only Wise Hands.  What has been done about the other children?”

“I have kept them away from the first; I am afraid for none of them but Conrade.”

“It would be the wisest way to send them, nurses and all, to Gowanbrae.”

“Wise, but cool,” said Alison.

“I will settle that,” returned Ermine.  “Tibbie shall come and invite them, and you must make Lady Temple consent.”

The sisters durst not embrace, but gazed at one another, feeling that it might be their last look, their hearts swelling with unspoken prayer, but their features so restrained that neither might unnerve the other.  Then it was that Alison, for the first time, felt absolute relief in the knowledge, once so bitter, that she had ceased to be the whole world to her sister.  And Ermine, for one moment, felt as if it would be a way out of all troubles and perplexities if the two sisters could die together, and leave little Rose to be moulded by Colin to be all he wished; but she resolutely put aside the future, and roused herself to send a few words in pencil, requesting Tibbie to step in and speak to her.

That worthy personage had fully adopted her, and entering, tall and stately, in her evening black silk and white apron, began by professing her anxiety to be any assistance in her power, saying, “she’d be won’erfu’ proud to serve Miss Williams, while her sister was sae thrang waitin’ on her young scholar in his sair trouble.”

Emmie thanked her, and rejoiced that the Colonel was out of harm’s way.

“Deed, aye, ma’am, he’s weel awa’.  He has sic a wark wi’ thae laddies an’ their bit bairn o’ a mither, I’ll no say he’d been easy keepit out o’ the thick o’ the distress, an’ it’s may be no surprisin’, after a’ that’s come and gane, that he seeks to take siccan a lift of the concern.  I’ve mony a time heard tell that the auld General, Sir Stephen, was as good as a faither to him, when he was sick an’ lonesome, puir lad, in yon far awa’ land o’ wild beasts an’ savages.”

“Would it not be what he might like, to take in the children out of the way of infection?”

“‘Deed, Miss Ermine,” with a significant curtsey, “I’m thinkin’ ye ken my maister Colin amaist as weel as I do.  He’s the true son of his forbears, an’ Gowanbrae used to be always open in the auld lord’s time, that’s his grandfather Foreby, that he owes so much kindness to the General.”

Ermine further suggested that it was a pity to wait for a letter from the Colonel, and Tibbie quite agreed.  She “liked the nurse as an extraordinar’ douce woman, not like the fine English madams that Miss Isabel—­that’s Mrs. Comyn Menteith—­put about her bairns; and as to room, the sergeant and the tailor bodie did not need much, and the masons were only busy in the front parlour.”