but on the hard food of the truth. I knew
that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to be a
father also; and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere
derision.

When I was in the midst of these thoughts, and about half-way back to
town, I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was
heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but
nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that
morning at the Advocate's, I made sure that I would find myself struck
dumb. But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the
consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the
least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I
might with Alan.

"O!" she cried, "you have been seeking your sixpence: did you get it?"

I told her, no; but now I had met with her, my walk was not in vain.
"Though I have seen you to-day already," said I, and told her where and
when.

"I did not see you," she said. "My eyes are big, but there are better
than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house."

"That was Miss Grant," said I, "the eldest and the bonniest."

"They say they are all beautiful," said she.

"They think the same of you, Miss Drummond," I replied, "and were all
crowding to the window to observe you."

"It is a pity about my being so blind," said she, "or I might have seen
them too.--And you were in the house? You must have been having the fine
time with the fine music and the pretty ladies."

"There is just where you are wrong," said I; "for I was as uncouth as a
sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain. The truth is that I am better
fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies."

"Well, I would think so too, at all events!" said she, at which we both
of us laughed.

"It is a strange thing, now," said I. "I am not the least afraid with
you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants. And I was afraid of your
cousin too."

"O, I think any man will be afraid of her," she cried. "My father is
afraid of her himself."

The name of her father brought me to a stop, I looked at her as she
walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the
much I guessed of him; and, comparing the one with the other, felt like
a traitor to be silent.

"Speaking of which," said I, "I met your father no later than this
morning."

"Did you?" she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at m