I did not like to
present myself just then, for fear of alarming the dear girl too much,
and then I did not dare to come here to-day till the gloamin'. I only
arrived yesterday."

"Weel, weel! The like o' this bates a'. Losh man! I hope it's no a
dream. Nip me, man, to mak sure. Sit doon, sit doon, an' let's hear a'
aboot it."

The story was a long one. Before it was quite finished the door was
gently opened, and Jean Black herself entered. She had come, as was her
wont every night, to walk home with her uncle.

Black sprang up.

"Jean, my wummin," he said, hastily putting on his blue bonnet, "there's
no light eneuch for ye to be intryduced to my freend here, but ye can
hear him if ye canna see him. I'm gaun oot to see what sort o' a night
it is. He'll tak' care o' ye till I come back."

Without awaiting a reply he went out and shut the door, and the girl
turned in some surprise towards the stranger.

"Jean!" he said in a low voice, holding out both hands.

Jean did not scream or faint. Her position in life, as well as her
rough experiences, forbade such weakness, but it did not forbid--well,
it is not our province to betray confidences! All we can say is, that
when Andrew Black returned to the cellar, after a prolonged and no doubt
scientific inspection of the weather, he found that the results of the
interview had been quite satisfactory--eminently so!

Need we say that there were rejoicing and thankful hearts in Candlemaker
Row that night? We think not. If any of the wraiths of the Covenanters
were hanging about the old churchyard, and had peeped in at the
well-known back window about the small hours of the morning, they would
have seen our hero, clasping his mother with his right arm and Jean with
his left. He was encircled by an eager group--composed of Mrs. Black
and Andrew, Jock Bruce, Ramblin' Peter, and Aggie Wilson--who listened
to the stirring tale of his adventures, or detailed to him the not less
stirring and terrible history of the long period that had elapsed since
he was torn from them, as they had believed, for ever.

Next morning Jean accompanied her lover to the workshop of her uncle,
who had preceded them, as he usually went to work about daybreak.

"Are ye no feared," asked Jean, with an anxious look in her companion's
face, "that some of your auld enemies may recognise you? You're so big
and--and--" (she thought of the word handsome, but substituted)
"odd-looking."

"T