uently, and Nancy read them with much pleasure and many comments,
but her private feelings toward the writer of them she confided to
none.

There was a talk which set Nancy's state of mind with some clearness,
however, which fell between us directly after the offer of marriage
made to her by McMurtrie of Ainswere.

"Dearest," she said, "I am beginning to see with my mind that every
woman flies in the face of the Almighty not to take into her life's
reckoning the instinct of her sex for love and motherhood. It seems to
me that a great love must be the best thing of all; but I'm just here,
I don't dare to marry because I'm afraid of myself; and I don't dare to
stay unmarried for fear of that great and unrelenting thing called
Nature."

"Nancy," said I, with an earnestness that came straight from the heart,
"if ye feel like that, your hour has not yet struck. For when the great
love comes, it's not a question of what you want, but what ye can't
help; and I wouldn't think anything more about it, for ye'll know when
it comes, my dear," I cried; "ye'll know when it comes!"

There was an odd scrap of business, trifling in itself, and yet leading
to great trouble, which fell about this time, and I set it down as of
interest to those who note the way fate uses all as instruments.

Nancy, Sandy, and I had planned a jaunt to Ireland. There had been no
intention whatever of taking Huey with us, for he was the last person
on earth to take upon a pleasure outing, as he regarded all strangers
as rogues and villains, and the Irish people as heathen papists,
worshiping idols in the few moments unoccupied in breaking each other's
heads with shillalahs. He had for me and mine a devotion at once
touching and uncomfortable; but as he grew older he interfered in all
manner of matters beyond his province, offered advices absurd and
impertinent, and never once in the whole sixty years of our
acquaintance can I recall his agreeing entirely with a statement made
by any body except Nancy. If he couldn't contradict one flatly, and the
uncongenial part of acquiescence was forced upon him by his love of
truth, he held a grudging silence or affected an absent mind, or no
interest in the matter whatever.

As the years went by and his health became feebler he followed me about
until he was like to drive me to Bedlam, and I used to discharge him
from my service about once a fortnight. I had never realized how highly
absurd our relations were unti