he step. It was such a homely-like thing! Mr.
Archie would never be eating sweeties in kirk; and, with a palpable
effort, she swallowed it whole, and her colour flamed high. At this
signal of distress Archie awoke to a sense of his ill-behaviour. What
had he been doing? He had been exquisitely rude in church to the niece
of his housekeeper; he had stared like a lackey and a libertine at a
beautiful and modest girl. It was possible, it was even likely, he would
be presented to her after service in the kirkyard, and then how was he
to look? And there was no excuse. He had marked the tokens of her shame,
of her increasing indignation, and he was such a fool that he had not
understood them. Shame bowed him down, and he looked resolutely at Mr.
Torrance: who little supposed, good, worthy man, as he continued to
expound justification by faith, what was his true business: to play the
part of derivative to a pair of children at the old game of falling in
love.

Christina was greatly relieved at first. It seemed to her that she was
clothed again. She looked back on what had passed. All would have been
right if she had not blushed, a silly fool! There was nothing to blush
at, if she _had_ taken a sugar-bool. Mrs. MacTaggart, the elder's wife
in St. Enoch's, took them often. And if he had looked at her, what was
more natural than that a young gentleman should look at the best-dressed
girl in church? And at the same time, she knew far otherwise, she knew
there was nothing casual or ordinary in the look, and valued herself on
its memory like a decoration. Well, it was a blessing he had found
something else to look at! And presently she began to have other
thoughts. It was necessary, she fancied, that she should put herself
right by a repetition of the incident, better managed. If the wish was
father to the thought, she did not know or she would not recognise it.
It was simply as a manoeuvre of propriety, as something called for to
lessen the significance of what had gone before, that she should a
second time meet his eyes, and this time without blushing. And at the
memory of the blush, she blushed again, and became one general blush
burning from head to foot. Was ever anything so indelicate, so forward,
done by a girl before? And here she was, making an exhibition of herself
before the congregation about nothing! She stole a glance upon her
neighbours, and behold! they were steadily indifferent, and Clem had
gone to sleep. And still