increased her
spirits wonderfully. Perhaps love has something to do with it! It may
be both!"

She was still engaged with a subtle analysis of this question--in front
of the glass, which gave her the advantage of supposing that she talked
with an opponent--when sudden and uproarious laughter was heard in the
adjoining room. It was Barret's sitting-room, in which his friends were
wont to visit him. She could distinguish that the laughter proceeded
from himself, Milly, and Giles Jackman, though the walls were too thick
to permit of either words or ordinary tones being heard.

"Milly," said Mrs Moss, severely, when they met a few minutes later in
the drawing-room, "what were you two and Mr Jackman laughing at so
loudly? Surely you did not tell them what we had been speaking about?"

"Of course I did, mother. I did not know you intended to keep the
matter secret. And it did so tickle them! But no one else knows it, so
I will run back to John and pledge him to secrecy. You can caution Mr
Jackman, who will be down directly, no doubt."

As Barret had not at that time recovered sufficiently to admit of his
going downstairs, his friends were wont to spend much of their time in
the snug sitting-room which had been apportioned to him. He usually
held his levees costumed in a huge flowered dressing-gown, belonging to
the laird, so that, although he began to look more like his former self,
as he recovered from his injuries, he was still sufficiently disguised
to prevent recognition on the part of Mrs Moss.

Nevertheless, the old lady felt strangely perplexed about him.

One day the greater part of the household was assembled in his room when
Mrs Moss remarked on this curious feeling.

"I cannot tell what it is, Mr Barret, that makes the sound of your
voice seem familiar to me," she said; "yet not exactly familiar, but a
sort of far-away echo, you know, such as one might have heard in a
dream; though, after all, I don't think I ever did hear a voice in a
dream."

Jackman and Milly glanced at each other, and the latter put the
safety-valve to her mouth while Barret replied--

"I don't know," he said, with a very grave appearance of profound
thought, "that I ever myself dreamt a voice, or, indeed, a sound of any
kind. As to what you say about some voices appearing to be familiar,
don't you think that has something to do with classes of men? No man, I
think, is a solitary unit in creation. Every man is, as it were