However, Archie bore her unreasonable depression with great consideration. She was but a frail child after all, and she was in a condition of health demanding the most affectionate patience and tenderness he could give her. Besides, it was no great sin in his eyes to be sick with longing for dear old Scotland. He loved his native land; and his little mountain blue-bell, trembling in every breeze, and drooping in every hour of heat and sunshine, appealed to the very best instincts of his nature. And when Sophy began to voice her longing, to cry a little in his arms, and to say she was wearying for a sight of the great grey sea round her Fife home, Archie vowed he was homesick as a man could be, and asked, “why they should stop away from their own dear land any longer?”
“People will wonder and talk so, Archie They will say unkind things—they will maybe say we are not happy together.”
“Let them talk. What care we? And we are happy together. Do you want to go back to Scotland tomorrow? today—this very hour?”
“Aye. I do, Archie. And I am that weak and poorly, if I don’t go soon, maybe I will have to wait a long time, and then you know.”
“Yes, I know. And that would never, never do. Braelands of Fife cannot run the risk of having his heir born in a foreign country. Why, it would be thrown up to the child, lad and man, as long as he lived! So call your maid, my bonnie Sophy, and set her to packing all your braws and pretty things, and we will turn our faces to Scotland’s hills and braes tomorrow morning.”
Thus it happened that on that bleak night in February, Archie Braelands and his wife came suddenly to their home amid the stormy winds and rains of a stormy night. Madame heard the wheels of their carriage as she sat sipping her negus, and thinking over her conversation with Allister and her alert soul instantly divined who the late comers were.
“Give me my silk morning gown and my brocade petticoat, Allister,” she cried, as she rose up hastily and set down her glass. “Mr. Archibald has come home; his carriage is at the door—haste ye, woman!”
“Will you be heeding your silks to-night, Madame?”
“Get them at once. Quick! Do you think I will meet the bride in a flannel dressing-gown? No, no! I am not going to lose ground the first hour.”
With nervous haste the richer garments were donned, and just as the final gold brooch was clasped, Archie knocked at his mother’s door. She opened to him with her own hands, and took him to her heart with an effusive affection she rarely permitted herself to exhibit.