can my
poor worn heart bear a' this!"

"Mary, my dear Mary!" ejaculated the moved man, "come to my bosom and
let me press you to my heart; for this is the only blissful moment I
have enjoyed for sixty years."

Nor was Mary deaf to his entreaties, for she resigned herself as in a
swoon to an embrace, which an excess of emotion, working on the
shrivelled heart and the wasted form, probably prevented her from
feeling.

"But, oh, Willie!" she cried, "a life's love lost; a lost life on both
our sides."

"Not altogether," rejoined he, in the midst of their mutual sobs. "It
may be--nay, it is--that our sands are nearly run. Yea, a rude shake
would empty the glass, so weak and wasted are both of us; but still
there are a few grains to pass, and they shall be made golden. You are
the only living creature in all this world I have any care for. More
thousands of pounds than you ever dreamt of are mine, and will be yours.
We will be married even yet, not as the young marry, but as those marry
who may look to their knowing each other as husband and wife in heaven,
where there are no cruel, interested men to keep them asunder; and for
the short time we are here you shall ride in your carriage as a lady,
and be attended by servants; nor shall a rude breath of wind blow upon
you which it is in the power of man to save you from."

"Ower late, Willie, ower late," sighed the exhausted woman, as she still
lay in his arms. "But if all this should please my Will--I canna use
another name, though you are now a gentleman--I will do even as you
list, and that which has been by a cruel fate denied us here we may
share in heaven."

"And who shall witness this strange marriage?" said he. "There is no one
in Edinburgh now that I know or knows me. Has any one ever been kind to
you?"

"Few, few indeed," answered she. "I can count only three."

"I must know these wonderful exceptions," said he, as he made an attempt
at a grim smile; "for those who have done a service to Mary Brown have
done a double service to me. I will make every shilling they have given
you a hundred pounds. Tell me their names."

"There is John Gilmour, my landlord," continued she, "who, though he
needed a' his rents for a big family, passed me many a term, and forbye
brought me often, when I was ill and couldna work, many a bottle o'
wine; there is Mrs. Paterson o' the Watergate, too, who aince, when I
gaed to her in sair need, gave me a shilling out o' three that sh