o his father. He was
coming home soon, he added; he could not say just when. He meant to
make more money first, and then, if all things were to his mind, he
should settle down on his father's land and wander no more.

It was also added, quite at the end of the paper, as though he had not
intended to speak of it at first, that he had had nothing to do with the
going away of his cousin, as he had heard the lad's father had supposed,
but that he should do his best to bring him home again; "for," he added,
"it is not at all a happy life that folk must live in this golden land."

To say that Angus Dhu was surprised when this letter came would not be
saying enough. He was utterly amazed. He had often thought that when
Allister was tired of his wanderings in foreign lands he might wander
home again and claim his share of what his father had left. But that he
had gone away and stayed away all this time for the purpose of redeeming
the land which his father had lost, he never for a moment supposed. He
even now thought it must have been a fortunate chance that had given the
money first into Allister's hand and then into his own. He made up his
mind at once that he should give up the land. It did not cost him half
as much to do so as it would have cost him two years ago not to get it.
It had come into his mind more than once of late, as he had seen how
well able the widow's children were to manage their own affairs, that
they might have been trusted to pay their father's debt in time; and,
whatever his neighbours thought, he began to think himself that he had
been hard on his cousin. Of course he did not say so; but he made up
his mind to take the money and give up the land.

And what words shall describe the joyful pride of Shenac? She did not
try to express it in words while Angus Dhu was there, but "her face and
her sparkling eyes were a sight to behold," as the old man afterwards in
confidence told his daughter Shenac. There were papers to be drawn up
and exchanged, and a deal of business of one kind or another to be
settled between the widow and Angus Dhu, and a deal of talk was needed,
or at least expended, in the course of it; but in it Shenac took no
part. She placed entire reliance on the sense and prudence of Hamish,
and she kept herself quite in the background through it all.

She would not acknowledge to any one who congratulated her on Allister's
success, that any surprise mingled with her pleasure; and