have acknowledged. She tore
off her nightcap, and her hair fell about her shoulders in profusion.
Undying coquetry awoke. By the faint light of her nocturnal rush, she
stood before the looking-glass, carried her shapely arms above her head,
and gathered up the treasures of her tresses. She was never backward to
admire herself; that kind of modesty was a stranger to her nature; and
she paused, struck with a pleased wonder at the sight. "Ye daft auld
wife!" she said, answering a thought that was not; and she blushed with
the innocent consciousness of a child. Hastily she did up the massive
and shining coils, hastily donned a wrapper, and with the rushlight in
her hand, stole into the hall. Below stairs she heard the clock ticking
the deliberate seconds, and Frank jingling with the decanters in the
dining-room. Aversion rose in her, bitter and momentary. "Nesty tippling
puggy!" she thought; and the next moment she had knocked guardedly at
Archie's door and was bidden enter.

Archie had been looking out into the ancient blackness, pierced here and
there with a rayless star; taking the sweet air of the moors and the
night into his bosom deeply; seeking, perhaps finding, peace after the
manner of the unhappy. He turned round as she came in, and showed her a
pale face against the window-frame.

"Is that you, Kirstie?" he asked. "Come in!"

"It's unco late, my dear," said Kirstie, affecting unwillingness.

"No, no," he answered, "not at all. Come in, if you want a crack. I am
not sleepy, God knows!"

She advanced, took a chair by the toilet-table and the candle, and set
the rushlight at her foot. Something--it might be in the comparative
disorder of her dress, it might be the emotion that now welled in her
bosom--had touched her with a wand of transformation, and she seemed
young with the youth of goddesses.

"Mr. Erchie," she began, "what's this that's come to ye?"

"I am not aware of anything that has come," said Archie, and blushed,
and repented bitterly that he had let her in.

"O, my dear, that'll no dae!" said Kirstie. "It's ill to blend the eyes
of love. O, Mr. Erchie, tak' a thocht ere it's ower late. Ye shouldna be
impatient o' the braws o' life, they'll a' come in their saison, like
the sun and the rain. Ye're young yet; ye've mony cantie years afore ye.
See and dinna wreck yersel' at the outset like sae mony ithers! Hae
patience--they telled me aye that was the owercome o' life--hae
patience, there's a braw