ter ever droned a psalm! She died in Silesia, not
careless, I'm thinking, of the memory of one or two weeks we spent
in Frankfort, whose outer lanes and faubourgs are in my recollection
blossoming with the almond-flower and scented at eve."

He rose to his feet and paced the floor beside us, strong, but loosened
a little at the tongue by the generous wine of Dalness; his mien a
blending of defiance against the cheatry of circumstance and a display
of old ancient grief.

"Heart of the rose, _gramachree_, bird-song at the lip, star eye and
wisdom, yet woman to the core! I wish I were so young as then I was, and
_ochanie_, what availed my teens, if the one woman that ever understood
me were no more but a dust in Glogoe!"

"Come, come, man," I cried; "it's a world full of very choice women."

"Is it indeed?" asked he, turning on me a pitiful eye; "I'm wrong if you
ever met but one that was quite so fine as you must have them---- Tuts,
tuts, here I'm on the key of old man's history. I cheat myself at times
of leisure into the notion that once I loved a foreign girl who died a
spotless maiden. You'll notice, Master Gordon, I have something of the
sentiment you Low-landers make such show of, or I play-act the thing
very well. Believe me, I'll hope to get a wife out of your parish some
day yet; but I warn you she must have a tocher in her stocking as well
as on her father's hill."

The minister surveyed him through half-shut eyes, leaning back on the
rungs of his chair. I think he saw the truth as clearly as I did myself,
for he spoke with more than common softness when he answered.

"I like your tale," he said, "which had a different conclusion and a
more noble one than what I looked for at the opening." Then he leaned
out and put a hand on John Splendid's sleeve. "Human nature," said
he, "is the most baffling of mysteries. I said I knew you from boot to
bonnet, but there's a corner here I have still to learn the secret of."

"Well, well," cried M'Iver, lifting a glass confusedly, and seating
himself again at the board, "here's a night-cap--MacCailein Mor and the
Campbell cause!"

"And a thought for the lady of Regenwalde," I whispered, pressing his
foot with my toe beneath the table, and clinking my glass with his.

We drank, the two of us, in a silence, and threw the glasses on the
hearth.

The windows, that now were shuttered, rattled to gowsty airs, and
the rain drummed on. All about the house, with its numerous