r and the nephew would become, after
his death, man and wife. He had only some doubts how far their tastes
agreed,--probably an absurd condition, in so much as we all know that
love is often struck out by opposition, and that there is a pleasant
suitability in a husband preferring the head of a herring, and the wife
the tail.

Having thus arrived at a sense of his duty by the pleasant path of his
affection, Mr. David Grierson seized the first opportunity which
presented itself of sounding the heart of Rachel, in order to know in
what direction her affections ran. Sitting in his big chair, all so
comfortably cushioned by the hands of the said Rachel herself, and with
a good fire alongside, due also to her unremitting care, he called her
to him, and placing his arm round her waist, as he was often in the
habit of doing, said to her--

"Rachel, dear, I feel day by day my strength leaving me, and it may be,
nay, will be, that I will not be very much longer with you."

Rachel looked at him for a little, but said nothing, for, as the saying
goes, her heart came to her mouth, and she could not have spoken even if
she would; but the father understood all this, and preferred the mute
expression of a real grief to a hysterical burst--of which, indeed, her
calm genial nature was incapable.

"Forgive me, dear," continued he, "for I would not willingly cause you
sorrow, but I have a reason for speaking in this grave way. Who is to
fill the old arm-chair when I cannot occupy it?"

And he smiled somewhat grimly as he sought her eye, in which he could
observe the most real of all nature's evidences of emotion.

"What mean you, father?" she replied, with something like an effort to
respond to his humour.

"Why, then, Rachel," he said, "to be out with it, I want to know whether
you have fixed your heart on any one."

"Only upon you, dear father," she replied, with a smile which struggled
against her seriousness.

"Nay, Rachel," continued he. "It is no light matter, and I must have an
answer. I intend to leave you my whole fortune, but upon one condition,
which is, that if Walter Grierson shall sue for your hand, you will
consent to marry him."

To this there was a reply given with an alacrity which showed how her
heart pointed--"Yes;" then, adding that wonderful little word "but,"
which makes such havoc among our resolutions, she paused, while her eyes
sought the ground.

"What 'but' can be here?" interjected the old man. "