The whole aspect of the rooms was full of tokens of his love and thought for her.  The ground-floor had been altered for her accommodation, the furniture chosen in accordance with her known tastes or with old memories, all undemonstratively prepared while yet she had not decided on her consent.  And what touched her above all, was the collection of treasures that he had year by year gathered together for her throughout the weary waiting, purchases at which Lady Temple remembered her mother’s banter, with his quiet evasions of explanation.  No wonder Ermine laid her head on her hand, and could not retain her tears, as she recalled the white, dismayed face of the youth, who had printed that one sad earliest kiss on her brow, as she lay fire-scathed and apparently dying; and who had cherished the dream unbroken and unwaveringly, had denied himself consistently, had garnered up those choice tokens when ignorant over whether she still lived; had relied on her trust, and come back, heart-whole, to claim and win her, undaunted by her crippled state, her poverty, and her brother’s blotted name.  “How can such love ever be met?  Why am I favoured beyond all I could have dared to image to myself?” she thought, and wept again; because, as she murmured to Fanny, “I do thank God for it with all my heart, and I do long to tell him all.  I don’t think my married life ought to begin by being sillier than ever I was before, but I can’t help it.”

“And I do love you so much the better for it,” said Fanny; a better companion to-day than the grave, strong Alison, who would have been kind, but would have had to suppress some marvel at the break-down, and some resentment that Edward had no greater share in it.

The morning’s post brought her the first letter from her husband, and in the midst of all her anxiety as to the contents, she could not but linger a moment on the aspect of the Honourable Mrs. Colin Keith in his handwriting; there was a carefulness in the penmanship that assured her that, let him have to tell her what he would, the very inditing of that address had been enjoyment to him.  That the border was black told nothing, but the intelligence was such as she had been fully prepared for.  Colin had arrived to find the surgeon’s work over, but the patient fast sinking.  Even his recognition of his brother had been uncertain, and within twenty-four hours of the morning that had given Colin a home of his own, the last remnant of the home circle of his childhood had passed from him.

Still Ermine had to continue a widowed bride for full a fortnight, whilst the funeral and subsequent arrangements necessitated Colin’s presence in Scotland.  It was on a crisp, beautiful October evening that Rose, her chestnut hair flying about her brow, stood, lighted up by the sunbeams in the porch, with upraised face and outstretched hands, and as the Colonel bent down to receive her joyous embrace, said, “Aunt Ermine gave me leave to bring you to the door.  Then I am going to Myrtlewood till bed-time.  And after that I shall always have you.”