d I ought to have seen it. People
have begun to talk; and it's not right of me. Do you see?"

"I see somebody will have been talking to ye," she said sullenly.

"They have--more than one of them," replied Archie.

"And whae were they?" she cried. "And what kind o' love do ye ca' that,
that's ready to gang round like a whirligig at folk talking? Do ye think
they havena talked to me?"

"Have they indeed?" said Archie, with a quick breath. "That is what I
feared. Who were they? Who has dare----?"

Archie was on the point of losing his temper.

As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to Christina on the matter;
and she strenuously repeated her own first question in a panic of
self-defence.

"Ah, well! what does it matter?" he said. "They were good folk that
wished well to us, and the great affair is that there are people
talking. My dear girl, we have to be wise. We must not wreck our lives
at the outset. They may be long and happy yet, and we must see to it,
Kirstie, like God's rational creatures and not like fool children. There
is one thing we must see to before all. You're worth waiting for,
Kirstie! worth waiting for a generation; it would be enough
reward."--And here he remembered the schoolmaster again, and very
unwisely took to following wisdom. "The first thing that we must see to
is that there shall be no scandal about for my father's sake. That would
ruin all; do ye no see that?"

Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some show of warmth of
sentiment in what Archie had said last. But the dull irritation still
persisted in her bosom; with the aboriginal instinct, having suffered
herself, she wished to make Archie suffer.

And besides, there had come out the word she had always feared to hear
from his lips, the name of his father. It is not to be supposed that,
during so many days with a love avowed between them, some reference had
not been made to their conjoint future. It had in fact been often
touched upon, and from the first had been the sore point. Kirstie had
wilfully closed the eye of thought; she would not argue even with
herself; gallant, desperate little heart, she had accepted the command
of that supreme attraction like the call of fate, and marched blindfold
on her doom. But Archie, with his masculine sense of responsibility,
must reason; he must dwell on some future good, when the present good
was all in all to Kirstie; he must talk--and talk lamely, as necessity
drove him--of wha