“Yes, that makes a great difference.”

“And,” pursued the young man, coming to something like life as he talked of his uncle, “though he is not quite all that a companion might be, my uncle says there would be no keeping the living without him, and I do not believe there would, unless my uncle would have me instead.”

Ermine laughed and looked interested, not quite knowing what other answer to make.  Rachel lifted up her eyebrows in amazement.

“Another advantage,” added Alick, who somehow seemed to accept Ermine as one of the family, “is, that he is no impediment to Bessie’s living there, for, poor man, he has a wife, but insane.”

“Then your sister will live there?” said Rachel.  “What an enviable position, to have the control of means of doing good that always falls to the women of a clerical family.”

“Tell her so,” said the brother, with his odd, suppressed smile.

“What, she does not think so?”

“Now,” said Mr. Keith, leaning back, “on my answer depends whether Bessie enters this place with a character for chanting, croquet, or crochet.  Which should you like worst, Miss Curtis?”

“I like evasions worst of all,” said Rachel, with a flash of something like playful spirit, though there was too much asperity in it.

“But you see, unfortunately, I don’t know,” said Alick Keith, slowly.  “I have never been able to find out, nor she either.  I don’t know what may be the effect of example,” he added.  Ermine wondered whether he were in mischief or earnest, and suspected a little of both.

“I shall be very happy to show Miss Keith any of my ways,” said Rachel, with no doubts at all; “but she will find me terribly impeded here.  When does she come?”

“Not for a month or six weeks, when the wedding will be over.  It is high time she saw something of her respected guardian.”

“The Colonel?”

“Yes,” then to Ermine, “Every one turns to him with reliance and confidence.  I believe no one in the army received so many last charges as he has done, or executes them more fully.”

“And,” said Ermine, feeling pleasure colour her cheek more deeply than was convenient, “you are relations.”

“So far away that only a Scotsman would acknowledge the cousinship.”

“But do not you call yourself Scotch?” said Ermine, who had for years thought it glorious to do so.

“My great grandfather came from Gowan-brae,” said Alick, “but our branch of the family has lived and died in the —­th Highlanders for so many generations that we don’t know what a home is out of it.  Our birthplaces—­yes, and our graves—­are in all parts of the world.”

“Were you ever in Scotland?”

“Never; and I dread nothing so much as being quartered there.  Just imagine the trouble it would be to go over the pedigree of every Keith I met, and to dine with them all upon haggis and sheeps’ head!”