“It would be no sacrifice if he only wanted us.”

“Where you are wanted is here.  Ermine wants you.  I want you.  The Temples want you.”

“Now, Colin, tell me truly.  Edward feels as I do, and Dr. Long spoke seriously of it.  Will not my present position do you and Ermine harm among your friends?”

“With no friend we wish to make or keep!”

“If I do remain,” continued Alison, “it must be as I am.  I would not live upon you, even if you asked me, which you have too much sense to do; and though dear Lady Temple is everything to me, and wants me to forget that I am her governess, that would be a mere shuffle, but if it is best for you that I should give it up, and go out, say so at once.”

“Best for me to have eight Temples thrown on my hands, all in despair!  To have you at Myrtlewood is an infinite relief to me, both on their account and Ermine’s.  You should not suspect a penniless Scotsman of such airs, Ailie.”

“Not you, Colin, but your family.”

“Isabel Menteith thinks a glass-blower was your father, and Mauleverer your brother, so yours is by far the most respectable profession.  No, indeed, my family might be thankful to have any one in it who could do as you have done.”

Alison’s scruples were thus disposed of, and when Edward’s brain cleared itself from platinum, he showed himself satisfied with the decision, though he insisted on henceforth sending home a sum sufficient for his daughter’s expenses, and once said something that could be construed into a hope of spending a quiet old age with her and his sister; but at present he was manifestly out of his element, and was bent on returning to Ekaterinburg immediately after the marriage.

His presence was but a qualified pleasure.  Naturally shy and absent, his broken spirits and removal from domestic life, and from society, had exaggerated his peculiarities; and under the pressure of misfortune, caused in a great measure by his own negligence, he had completely given way, without a particle of his sister’s patience or buoyancy, and had merely striven to drown his troubles in engrossing problems of his favourite pursuit, till the habit of abstraction had become too confirmed to be shaken off.  When the blot on his name was removed, he was indeed sensible that he was no longer an exile, but he could not resume his old standing, friendships rudely severed could not be re-united; his absorption had grown by indulgence; old interests had passed away; needful conformity to social habits was irksome, and even his foreign manner and appearance testified to his entire unfitness for English life.