“He never gets beyond that bar,” said Colin. “It carries me back to Glasgow and all the old days. We used to call it Lauderdale’s pibroch. Give me my dinner, mother. I don’t see what I should grumble about as long as you and he are by me. Help me to get up, old fellow,” the young man said, holding out his hands; and he ate his invalid meal cheerfully, with eager questions about all his old companions, and bursts of passing laughter, which to the ears of his friend were more terrible than so many groans. As for the Mistress, she had got used by this time to connect together those two ideas of Colin and a sick-bed, the conjunction of which was as yet misery to Lauderdale; and she was glad in her boy’s pleasure, and took trembling hope from every new evidence of his unbroken spirit. Before long the old current of talk had flowed into its usual channel; and, but for the strange, novel circumstances which surrounded them, one at least of the party might have forgotten for the moment that they were not in the pleasant parlour of Ramore; but that one did not see his own countenance, its eloquent brightness, its flashes of sudden colour, and the shining of its too brilliant eyes. But there could not be any doubt that Colin improved from that moment. Lauderdale had secured a little lodging in the village, from which he came every morning to the “callant,” in whom his disappointed spirit, too careless of personal good, too meditative and speculative for any further ambition on his own account, had fixed its last hopes. He even came, in time, after he had accustomed himself to the young man’s illness, to share, by moments, in the Mistress’s hopes. When Colin at last got up from his bed, it was Lauderdale’s arm he leant on. That was an eventful day to the little anxious group in the sick chamber, whose hopes sometimes leapt to certainty, but whose fears, with an intuition deeper still, sometimes fell to the other extreme, and were hushed in the silence of an anguish too deep to be fathomed, from which thought itself drew back. It was a bright winter day, with symptoms of spring in the air, when the young patient got up from his weary bed. Colin made very light of his weakness in the rising tide of his spirits. He faultered across the room upon Lauderdale’s arm, to look out again, as he said, upon the world. It was an unfortunate moment for his first renewal of acquaintance with the bright outside sphere of ordinary life, which had passed on long ago, and forgotten Colin. The room in which they had placed him when his illness began was one of the best rooms in the house, and looked out upon the terrace and the big holly-trees which Colin knew so well. It was the morning of the day on which Lady Frankland’s ball was to take place, and symptoms of excitement and preparation were apparent. Immediately in front of the window, when Colin looked out, Miss Matty was standing in animated talk with her cousin. They had been loitering about, as people do in the morning about a country house, with no particular occupation--for the sun was warm, though it was still only the end of January--and Matty was at the moment engaged in indicating some special designs of her own which were involved in Lady Frankland’s alterations in the flower-garden, for Harry’s approval. She had, indeed, just led him by the sleeve into the midst of the half-completed design, and was describing circles round him with the walking-stick which she had taken out of his hand for the purpose, as Colin stood tremulous and uncertain by the window, looking out. Nobody could look brighter than Miss Matty; nobody more happy than the heir of Wodensbourne. If the sick man had entertained any hope that his misfortune threw a sympathetic shadow over them, he must now have been undeceived very summarily. Colin, however, bore the trial without flinching. He looked at them as if they were miles or ages away, with a strange smile, which did not seem to the anxious spectators to have any bitterness in it. But he made no remark until he had left the window, and taken his place on the sofa which had been arranged for him by the fire. Then he smiled again, without looking at any one, with abstract eyes, which went to the hearts of his attendants. “How far off the world seems,” said Colin. “I feel as if I ought to be vexed by that pretty scene on the terrace. Don’t you think so, mother? But I am not vexed, no more than if it was a picture. I wonder what it means?”