“I understand, sir. If you will allow me to go home with you—”
“Permit me to conclude what I was saying, Mrs Fleming. That unhappy lady, in favour of whose temper it is impossible to say anything, has caused us equal uneasiness by another tendency of late—a tendency to indulge—”
But Annie did not, at such a moment, stand upon ceremony. She was by this time leading the children home, one in each hand.
“So you are really going away, and immediately?” said she to Mrs Ruthven.
“Immediately,” replied the heated, anxious Mrs Ruthven.
“Where is Lady Carse?”
The question again brought tears into Mrs Ruthven’s swollen eyes.
“I do not know. Mr Ruthven wishes to be gone before she returns from her walk.”
“We leave her the entire house to herself,” declared the pastor, now entering. “Will you bear our farewell message to her, and wish her joy from us of being possessor of the whole house; and of—”
“Here she comes,” said Annie, quietly. “Lady Carse,” she said, “this is a remarkable day. Here is another way opening for your deliverance—a way which appears to me so clear that you have only to be patient for a few weeks or months before your best wishes are fulfilled. Mrs Ruthven