ad been "up
the gait," as the servants say at Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and
if they had little left of the guinea, they had less of their wits.
What must John Paul do but burst into the hall where the family sat at
dinner, and cry the news to them that "Tam Macmorland was but new
lichtit at the door, and--wirra, wirra--there were nane to come behind
him"?

They took the word in silence like folk condemned; only Mr. Henry
carrying his palm to his face, and Miss Alison laying her head outright
upon her hands. As for my lord, he was like ashes.

"I have still one son," says he. "And, Henry, I will do you this
justice--it is the kinder that is left."

It was a strange thing to say in such a moment; but my lord had never
forgotten Mr. Henry's speech, and he had years of injustice on his
conscience. Still it was a strange thing, and more than Miss Alison
could let pass. She broke out and blamed my lord for his unnatural
words, and Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in safety when his
brother lay dead, and herself because she had given her sweetheart ill
words at his departure, calling him the flower of the flock, wringing
her hands, protesting her love, and crying on him by his name--so that
the servants stood astonished.

Mr. Henry got to his feet, and stood holding his chair. It was he that
was like ashes now.

"O!" he burst out suddenly, "I know you loved him."

"The world knows that, glory be to God!" cries she; and then to Mr.
Henry: "There is none but me to know one thing--that you were a traitor
to him in your heart."

"God knows," groans he, "it was lost love on both sides."

Time went by in the house after that without much change; only they were
now three instead of four, which was a perpetual reminder of their loss.
Miss Alison's money, you are to bear in mind, was highly needful for the
estates; and the one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his heart
upon her marrying the other. Day in, day out, he would work upon her,
sitting by the chimney-side with his finger in his Latin book, and his
eyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant intentness that became
the old gentleman very well. If she wept, he would condole with her like
an ancient man that has seen worse times and begins to think lightly
even of sorrow; if she raged, he would fall to reading again in his
Latin book, but always with some civil excuse; if she offered, as she
often did, to let them have her money in a gift, he wou