Very tenderly towards Alison herself did Colin Keith speak.  It was the first time they had ever been brought into close contact, and she had quite to learn to know him.  She had regarded his return as probably a misfortune, but it was no longer possible to do so when she heard his warm and considerate way of speaking of her sister, and saw him only desirous of learning what was most for her real happiness.  Nay, he even made a convert of Alison herself!  She did believe that would Ermine but think it right to consent, she would be happy and safe in the care of one who knew so well how to love her.  Terrible as the wrench would be to Alison herself, she thought he deserved her sister, and that she would be as happy with him as earth could make her.  But she did not believe Ermine would ever accept him.  She knew the strong, unvarying resolution by which her sister had always held to what she thought right, and did not conceive that it would waver.  The acquiescence in his visits, and the undisguised exultant pleasure in his society, were evidences to Alison not of wavering or relenting, but of confidence in Ermine’s own sense of impossibility.  She durst not give him any hope, though she owned that he merited success.  “Did she think his visits bad for her sister?” he then asked in the unselfishness that pleaded so strongly for him.

“No, certainly not,” she answered eagerly, then made a little hesitation that made him ask further.

“My only fear,” she said candidly, “is, that if this is pressed much on her, and she has to struggle with you and herself too, it may hurt her health.  Trouble tells not on her cheerfulness, but on her nerves.”

“Thank you,” he said, “I will refrain.”

Alison was much happier than she had been since the first apprehension of his return.  The first pang at seeing Ermine’s heart another’s property had been subdued; the present state of affairs was indefinitely-prolonged, and she not only felt trust in Colin Keith’s consideration for her sister, but she knew that an act of oblivion was past on her perpetration of the injury.  She was right.  His original pitying repugnance to a mere unknown child could not be carried on to the grave, saddened woman devoted to her sister, and in the friendly brotherly tone of that interview, each understood the other.  And when Alison came home and said, “I have been walking with Colin,” her look made Ermine very happy.

“And learning to know him.”

“Learning to sympathize with him, Ermine,” with steady eyes and voice.  “You are hard on him.”

“Now, Ailie,” said Ermine, “once for all, he is not to set you on me, as he has done with Lady Temple.  The more he persuades me, the better I know that to listen would be an abuse of his constancy.  It would set him wrong with his brother, and, as dear Edward’s affairs stand, we have no right to carry the supposed disgrace into a family that would believe it, though he does not.  If