"But O unseen for three long years,
Dear was the garb of mountaineers
To the fair maid of Lorn."--LORD OF THE ISLES.
"Only nerves," said Alison Williams, whenever she was pushed hard as to
why her sister continued unwell, and her own looks betrayed an anxiety
that her words would not confess. Rachel, after a visit on the first
day, was of the same opinion, and prescribed globules and enlivenment;
but after a personal administration of the latter in the shape of
a discussion of Lord Keith, she never called in the morning without
hearing that Miss Williams was not up, nor in the afternoon without
Alison's meeting her, and being very sorry, but really she thought it
better for her sister to be quite quiet.
In fact, Alison was not seriously uneasy about Ermine's health, for
these nervous attacks were not without precedent, as the revenge for all
excitement of the sensitive mind upon the much-tried constitution. The
reaction must pass off in time, and calm and patience would assist in
restoring her; but the interview with Lord Keith had been a revelation
to her that her affection was not the calm, chastened, mortified, almost
dead thing of the past that she had tried to believe it; but a
young, living, active feeling, as vivid, and as little able to brook
interference as when the first harsh letter from Gowanbrae had fallen
like a thunderbolt on the bright hopes of youth.
She looked back at some
verses that she had written, when first perceiving that life was to be
her portion, where her own intended feelings were ascribed to a maiden
who had taken the veil, believing her crusader slain, but who saw him
return and lead a recluse life, with the light in her cell for his
guiding star. She smiled sadly to find how far the imaginings of four
and twenty transcended the powers of four and thirty; and how the heart
that had deemed itself able to resign was chafed at the appearance of
compulsion. She felt that the right was the same as ever; but it was
an increased struggle to maintain the resolute abstinence from all that
could bind Colin to her, at the moment when he was most likely to be
detached, and it was a struggle rendered the more trying by the monotony
of a life, scarcely varied except by the brainwork, which she was often
obliged to relinquish.
Nothing, however, here assisted her so much as Lady Temple's new pony
carriage which, by Fanny's desire, had been built low enough to permit
of her being easily lifted into it. Inert, and almost afraid of change,
Ermine was hard to persuade, but Alison, guessing at the benefit, was
against her, and Fanny's wistful eyes and caressing voice were not to be
gainsaid; so she suffered herself to be placed on the broad easy seat,
and driven about the lanes, enjoying most intensely the new scenes,
the peeps of sea, the distant moors, the cottages with their glowing
orchards, the sloping harvest fields, the variety that was an absolute
healing to the worn spirits, and moreover, that quiet conversation with
Lady Temple, often about the boys, but more often about Colonel Keith.