She knew his face.  “Colin, your brother is worse?” He bent his head, he could not speak.

“And you have to go to him!  This very day?”

“Ermine, you must decide.  You are at last my first duty!”

“That means that you know you ought to go.  Tell me what it is.”

He told the substance of the note, ending with, “If you could come with me!”

“I would if I should not be a tie and hindrance.  No, I must not do that; but here I am, Colin, here I am.  And it is all true—­it has all come right at last!  All we waited for.  Nothing has ever been like this.”

She was the stronger.  Tears, as much of loving thankfulness as of overflowing disappointment, rushed into his eyes at such a fulfilment of the purpose that he had carried with him by sea and land, in battle and sickness, through all the years of his manhood.  And withal her one thought was to infuse in its strongest measure the drop of happiness that was to sustain him through the scenes that awaited him, to make him feel her indeed his wife, and to brighten him with the sunbeam face that she knew had power to cheer him.  Rallying her playfulness, she took off her bonnet, and said as she settled her hair, “There, that is being at home!  Take my shawl, yes, and these white gloves, and put them out of sight, that I may not feel like a visitor, and that you may see how I shall look when you come back.  Do you know, I think your being out of the way will be rather a gain, for there will be a tremendous feminine bustle with the fitting of our possessions.”

Her smile awoke a responsive look, and she began to gaze round and admire, feeling it safest to skim on the surface; and he could not but be gratified by her appreciation of the pains spent upon this, her especial home.  He had recovered himself again by the time these few sentences had passed; they discussed the few needful arrangements required by his departure, and Tibbie presently found them so cheerful that she was quite scandalized, and when Ermine held out her hands, saying, “What Tibbie, won’t you come and kiss me, and wish me joy?” she exclaimed—­

“Wish ye joy!  It’s like me to wish ye joy an yer lad hurled awa frae yer side i’ the blink o’ an ee, by thae wild telegrams.  I dinna see what joy’s to come o’t; it’s clean again the Scripture!”

“I told you I had left it to her to decide, Tibbie,” said the Colonel.

“Weel, an what wad ye hae the puir leddy say?  She kens what sorts ye, when the head of yer name is sick an lyin’ among thae English loons that hae brocht him to siccan a pass.”

“Right, Tibbie,” exclaimed Ermine, greatly amused at the unexpected turn, purely for the sake of putting Maister Colin in the wrong.  “If a gentleman won’t be content without a bride who can’t walk, he must take the consequence, and take his wedding trip by himself!  It is my belief, Tibbie, as I have just been telling him, that you and I shall get the house in all the better order for having him off our hands, just at first,” she added, with a look of intelligence.