“Take care, it is very unfeminine and disagreeable to be devoid of nonsense.”
“Very, and therefore you are talking it now! Ermine, how shall I thank you? Not only for the sake of the ease of mind to my poor brother; but in the scenes we are going through, a drop of happiness is wanted as a stimulant. When I looked at the young couple at Bishopsworthy, I often felt as if another half-year of suspense was more than I could bear, and that I must ask you to help me through with at least a definite hope.”
“Ah! you have gone through a great deal I am sure it has been a time of great trouble.”
“Indeed it has. The suffering has become unceasing and often most severe, and there is grievous depression of spirits; I could not have left him even for a day, if he had not been so fervently bent on this.”
“Is he feeling his loss more acutely than at first?”
“Not so much that, as for the poor little boy, who is a heavy burthen on his mind. He has lived in such a state of shrewd distrust that he has no power of confidence, and his complications for making all the boy’s guardians check one another till we come to a dead lock, and to make provision for Isabel out of Menteith’s reach, are enough to distract the brain of a man in health.”
“Is he fond of the child?”
“It is an oppressive care to him, and he only once has made up his mind to see it, though it is never off his mind, and it is very curious how from the first he has been resolved on your taking charge of it. It is the most real testimony he could give you.”
“It is very comfortable not to be brought in like an enemy in spite of him, as even a year ago I could have been proud to do.”
“And I to have brought you,” he answered, “but it is far better as it is. He is very cordial, and wants to give up the Auchinvar estate to me; indeed, he told me that he always meant me to have it as soon as I had washed my hands of you—you wicked syren—but I think you will agree with me that he had better leave it to his daughter Mary, who has nothing. We never reckoned on it.”