ying down on the pillow. I'll
open the letter mysell; though, as your faither used to tell me, I never
had a heid for business."

She broke the seal, and Janet, looking over her shoulder, read aloud to
her slower mind:--

"GLASGOW, _March 12, 18--._

"SIR,--We desire once more to call your attention to the fact that
the arrears of interest on the mortgage of your house have not been
paid. Our client is unwilling to proceed to extremities, but unless
you make some arrangement within a week, he will be forced to take
the necessary steps to safeguard his interests.--Yours faithfully,

BRODIE, GURNEY, & YARROWBY."

Mrs. Gourlay sank into a chair, and the letter slipped from her upturned
palm, lying slack upon her knee.

"Janet," she said, appealingly, "what's this that has come on us? Does
the house we live in, the House with the Green Shutters, not belong to
us ainy more? Tell me, lassie. What does it mean?"

"I don't ken," whispered Janet, with big eyes. "Did faither never tell
ye of the bond?"

"He never telled me about anything," cried Mrs. Gourlay, with a sudden
passion. "I was aye the one to be keepit in the dark--to be keepit in
the dark and sore hadden doon. Oh, are we left destitute, Janet--and us
was aye sae muckle thocht o'! And me, too, that's come of decent folk,
and brought him a gey pickle bawbees--am I to be on the parish in my
auld age? Oh, _my_ faither, _my_ faither!"

Her mind flashed back to the jocose and well-to-do father who had been
but a blurred thought to her for twenty years. That his daughter should
come to a pass like this was enough to make him turn in his grave. Janet
was astonished by her sudden passion in feebleness. Even the murder of
her husband had been met by her weak mind with a dazed resignation. For
her natural horror at the deed was swallowed by her anxiety to shield
the murderer; and she experienced a vague relief--felt but not
considered--at being freed from the incubus of Gourlay's tyranny. It
seemed, too, as if she was incapable of feeling anything poignantly,
deadened now by these quick calamities. But that _she_, that
Tenshillingland's daughter, should come to be an object of common
charity, touched some hidden nerve of pride, and made her writhe in
agony.

"It mayna be sae bad," Janet tried to comfort her.

"Waken John," said her mother feverishly--"wake