,
an' syne naebody wad mistak the news ye bring."

Therewith Donal walked on, doubtless for the moment a little
relieved. But before they had walked far, he broke down altogether.

"Gibbie," he said, "yon rascal's gauin' to merry the leddy-lass! an'
it drives me mad to think it. Gien I cud but ance see an' speyk
till her--ance--jist ance! Lord! what 'll come o' a' the gowans
upo' the Mains, an' the heather upo' Glashgar!"

He burst out crying, but instantly dashed away his tears with
indignation at his weakness.

"I maun dree my weird," (undergo my doom), he said, and said no
more.

Gibbie's face had grown white in the moon-gleams, and his lips
trembled. He put his arm through Donal's and clung to him, and in
silence they went home. When they reached Donal's room, Donal
entering shut the door behind him and shut out Gibbie. He stood for
a moment like one dazed, then suddenly coming to himself, turned
away, left the house, and ran straight to Daur-street.

When the minister's door was opened to him, he went to that of the
dining-room, knowing Mr. and Mrs. Sclater would then be at supper.
Happily for his intent, the minister was at the moment having his
tumbler of toddy after the labours of the day, an indulgence which,
so long as Gibbie was in the house, he had, ever since that first
dinner-party, taken in private, out of regard, as he pretended to
himself, for the boy's painful associations with it, but in reality,
to his credit be it told if it may, from a little shame of the thing
itself; and his wife therefore, when she saw Gibbie, rose, and,
meeting him, took him with her to her own little sitting-room, where
they had a long talk, of which the result appeared the next night in
a note from Mrs. Sclater to Gibbie, asking him and Donal to spend
the evening of Tuesday with her.

CHAPTER LII.

THE QUARRY.

Donal threw everything aside, careless of possible disgrace in the
class the next morning, and, trembling with hope, accompanied
Gibbie: she would be there--surely! It was one of those clear
nights in which a gleam of straw-colour in the west, with
light-thinned gray-green deepening into blue above it, is like the
very edge of the axe of the cold--the edge that reaches the soul.
But the youths were warm enough: they had health and hope. The
hospitable crimson room, with its round table set out for a Scotch
tea, and its fire blazing hugely, received them. And there sat
Ginevra by the fir