the
consequence of which was, that, the next time he called, Mr.
Galbraith, much to her relief, stood the brunt of his approach, and
received him. The ice thus broken, his ingratiating manners, and
the full-blown respect he showed Mr. Galbraith, enabling the weak
man to feel himself, as of old, every inch a laird, so won upon him
that, when he took his leave, he gave him a cordial invitation to
repeat his visit.

He did so, in the evening this time, and remembering a predilection
of the laird's, begged for a game of backgammon. The result of his
policy was, that, of many weeks that followed, every Monday evening
at least he spent with the laird. Ginevra was so grateful to him
for his attention to her father, and his efforts to draw him out of
his gloom, that she came gradually to let a little light of favour
shine upon him. And if the heart of Fergus Duff was drawn to her,
that is not to be counted to him a fault--neither that, his heart
thus drawn, he should wish to marry her. Had she been still heiress
of Glashruach, he dared not have dreamed of such a thing, but,
noting the humble condition to which they were reduced, the growing
familiarity of the father, and the friendliness of the daughter, he
grew very hopeful, and more anxious than ever to secure the
presentation to the North church, which was in the gift of the city.
He could easily have got a rich wife, but he was more greedy of
distinction than of money, and to marry the daughter of the man to
whom he had been accustomed in childhood to look up as the greatest
in the known world, was in his eyes like a patent of nobility, would
be a ratification of his fitness to mingle with the choice of the
land.

CHAPTER LI.

THE NORTH CHURCH.

It was a cold night in March, cloudy and blowing. Every human body
was turned into a fortress for bare defence of life. There was no
snow on the ground, but it seemed as if there must be snow
everywhere else. There was snow in the clouds overhead, and there
was snow in the mind of man beneath. The very air felt like the
quarry out of which the snow had been dug which was being ground
above. The wind felt black, the sky was black, and the lamps were
blowing about as if they wanted to escape for the darkness was after
them. It was the Sunday following the induction of Fergus, and this
was the meteoric condition through which Donal and Gibbie passed on
their way to the North church, to hear him preach in the pu