ancy should save her
vitality. She should store it up for wifehood and motherhood. She'll be
a spent woman before she has a husband, and your grandchildren puny
youngsters as a resulting. Think it over, John," he concluded; "think
it over."

He was scarce out of the house when Nancy appeared from the garden,
coming over to the place I sat to put her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm thinking of marrying John Montrose, Jock," she said, with no
introduction whatever.

"Ye have my own gentle way of breaking news to people, Little Flower,"
I said; and then: "Do you love him, Nancy? Or, what is more to the
point, are you in love with him?"

"Neither," she responded; "but I have grown to believe in him, in spite
of his past, and love may come," and here she clasped her hands
together and her eyes widened with pain as she said: "I have had a
great temptation, Daddy. A great temptation, and I want to put away any
chance of it ever coming to me again. I could be true to another always
when I might not----"

"Nancy," I interrupted, drawing her down on my knee, "there is no
greater mistake a woman can make than to think that marrying one man
will help her to forget another; for there is just one thing worse than
not having the man you want, and that is having the man you don't want.
And if you're not in love with Montrose, you'll never get my consent to
the wedding, not if he were the Prince himself."

On the morning following these talks the duke, who was still with us,
sent excuses to the breakfast-room that he had passed an uneasy night
and would rest until noon; and his valet, who brought this message,
ended by saying:

"His grace is not well. His grace should have a doctor, for he had the
bleeding from the lungs again last night, although it would be worth my
place if he knew I mentioned it to your lordship."

In our foggy country a little throat trouble is no great matter, but I
ordered my horse for town, meaning to get McMurtrie out, as if by
accident, to see what attentions the duke might require; and riding in
some haste by the Bridge end, found a group of men, with papers in
their hands, discussing some bit of news with much interest. As I drew
near them, Dundas waved the journal at me and called out:

"Our congratulations, John."

I reined in my horse, asking the very natural question, upon what I was
to be congratulated, when Blake handed me a copy of The Lounger,
indicating a certain paragraph for me to read. Th