pid, and pleased, and bewildered; his misfortunes were then half
forgotten; his mind considering, not without regret, this unsentimental
return to his old love.

He was thus engaged when that bustling woman noiselessly re-entered.

"Have you eaten?" said she. "Then tell me all about it."

It was a long and (as the reader knows) a pitiful story; but Flora heard
it with compressed lips. She was lost in none of those questionings of
human destiny that have, from time to time, arrested the flight of my
own pen; for women, such as she, are no philosophers, and behold the
concrete only. And women, such as she, are very hard on the imperfect
man.

"Very well," said she, when he had done; "then down upon your knees at
once, and beg God's forgiveness."

And the great baby plumped upon his knees, and did as he was bid; and
none the worse for that! But while he was heartily enough requesting
forgiveness on general principles, the rational side of him
distinguished, and wondered if, perhaps, the apology were not due upon
the other part. And when he rose again from that becoming exercise, he
first eyed the face of his old love doubtfully, and then, taking heart,
uttered his protest.

"I must say, Flora," said he, "in all this business I can see very
little fault of mine."

"If you had written home," replied the lady, "there would have been none
of it. If you had even gone to Murrayfield reasonably sober, you would
never have slept there, and the worst would not have happened. Besides,
the whole thing began years ago. You got into trouble, and when your
father, honest man, was disappointed, you took the pet, or got afraid,
and ran away from punishment. Well, you've had your own way of it, John,
and I don't suppose you like it."

"I sometimes fancy I'm not much better than a fool," sighed John.

"My dear John," said she, "not much!"

He looked at her and his eye fell. A certain anger rose within him; here
was a Flora he disowned: she was hard; she was of a set colour; a
settled, mature, undecorative manner; plain of speech, plain of
habit--he had come near saying, plain of face. And this changeling
called herself by the same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid of
yore; she of the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind,
stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper hand with him,
which (as John well knew) was not the true relation of the sexes. He
steeled his heart against this sick-nurse.

"