Mrs. Lindsay had been half amused and half sorry to see how Louis Hammond parted from Amy. "Only calf love," she observed to her husband, "but the laddie feels it mair than his mother would just like." Louis kept up a regular correspondence with Mr. Lufton, ostensibly about horses and kindred topics, but he always made particular enquiries as to the family at Branxholm, and especially about Amy Staunton; and Mr. Lufton, who felt a little tender in that quarter himself, had no objection to give any reasonable amount of information. Louis had felt too jealous of Allan Lindsay to ask him to correspond with him, but he considered Mr. Lufton an old fogey who had been refused by ever so many young ladies to Louis's certain knowledge, and therefore could be no dangerous rival. Louis was determined to return to the colony as soon as his want of success had convinced his father and mother that he was fit for nothing else, and the recollection of Amy Staunton was interwoven with all the memories of the sunny South Land which he loved and regretted so much.
