h; "and if it had been
any other than Tony--Ah, doctor! why do you shake your head? you make me
think you 've heard something or other. What is it, sir?"

"It's just nothing at all, Mrs. Butler, but your own fears, and very
proper fears too they are, for a young lad that goes away from home for
the first time in his life, and to such a place too. Ah me!" cried he,
in a soil of apostrophe, "it 's not so easy to be in grace down about
Charing Cross and the Hay market."

"You 're just frightening me, Dr. Stewart; that's what it is you are
doing."

"And I say it again, ma'am, it's yourself is the cause o' it all. But
tell me what success he has had,--has he seen Sir Harry Elphinstone?"

"That he has, and seen a greater than Sir Harry; he has come back with a
fine place, doctor; he's to be one of the Queen's--I forget whether they
call them couriers or messengers--that bring the state despatches all
over the world; and, as poor dear Tony says, it's a place that was made
for him,--for they don't want Greek or Latin, or any more book-learning
than a country gentleman should have.

"What are you sighing about, Dr. Stewart? There's nothing to sigh over
getting five, maybe six, hundred a year."

"I was not sighing; I was only thinkin'. And when is he to begin this
new life?"

"If you are sighing over the fall it is for a Butler, one of his kith
and kin, taking a very humble place, you may just spare your feelings,
doctor, for there are others as good as himself in the same employ."

"And what does Sir Arthur say to it, ma'am?" asked he, as it were to
divert her thoughts into another course.

"Well, if you must know, Dr. Stewart," said she, drawing herself up and
smoothing down her dress with dignity, "we have ventured to take this
step without consulting Sir Arthur or any of his family."

A somewhat long silence ensued. At last she said: "If Tony was at home,
doctor, he 'd tell you how kindly his father's old friend received
him,--taking up stories of long ago, and calling him Watty, just as he
used to do. And so, if they did not give my poor boy a better place,
it was because there was nothing just ready at the moment, perhaps,--or
nothing to fit him; for, as Sir Harry said laughingly, 'We can't make
you a bishop, I fear.'"

"I dinna see anything against it," muttered the old minister, not sorry
for the chance of a shot against Episcopacy.

"I'm thinking, Dr. Stewart," said she, tartly, "that your rheumatism
must