midday
`` Much better so . The worst thing we could do would be to go on talking about it . It is far better for me to be left with my dear little unconscious companion . '' Alison tried to comfort herself with this belief through the long hours of the morning , during which she only heard that mamma and Colonel Keith were gone to the Homestead , and she saw no one till she came forth with her troop to the midday meal . And there , at sight of Lady Temple 's content and calm , satisfied look , as though she were once more in an accustomed atmosphere , and felt herself and the boys protected , and of the Colonel 's courteous attention to her and affectionate authority towards her sons , it was an absolute pang to recognise the hue of eye described by Ermine ; but still Alison tried to think them generic Keith eyes , till at length , amid the merry chatter of her pupils , came an appeal to `` Miss Williams , '' and then came a look that thrilled through her , the same glance that she had met for one terrible moment twelve years before , and renewing the same longing to shrink from all sight or sound . How she kept her seat and continued to attend to the children she never knew , but the voices sounded like a distant Babel ; and she did not know whether she were most relieved , disappointed , or indignant when she left the dining-room to take the boys for their walk . Oh , that Ermine could be hid from all knowledge of what would be so much harder to bear than the death in which she had long believed !