n rush, "when I mind the life her father and her mother lived
together--a life of very nearly perfect blessedness--I canna but be glad
that Miss Graeme is to have a chance of the higher happiness that comes
with a home of one's own, where true love bides and rules. I ay mind
her father and her mother. They had their troubles. They were whiles
poor enough, and whiles had thraward folk to deal with; but trouble
never seemed to trouble them when they bore it together. And God's
blessing was upon them through all. But I have told you all this many a
time before, only it seems to come fresh and new to me to-day, thinking,
as I am, of Miss Graeme."

Yes, Mr Snow had heard it all many a time, and doubtless would hear it
many a time again, but he only smiled, and said,--

"And Graeme is like her mother?"

"Yes, she's like her, and she's not like her. She is quieter and no' so
cheery, and she is no' near so bonny as her mother was. Rose is more
like her mother in looks, but she doesna 'mind me of her mother in her
ways as her sister does, because, I suppose, of the difference that the
age and the country make on all that are brought up in them. There is
something wanting in all the young people of the present day, that well
brought up bairns used to have in mine. Miss Graeme has it, and her
sister hasna. You'll ken what I mean by the difference between them."

Mr Snow could not. The difference that he saw between the sisters was
sufficiently accounted for to him by the ten year's difference in their
ages. He never could be persuaded, that, in any undesirable sense, Rose
was more like the modern young lady than her sister. Graeme was
perfect, in his wife's eyes, and Rose was not quite perfect. That was
all. However, he did not wish to discuss the question just now.

"Well! Graeme is about as good as we can hope to see in _this_ world,
and if he's good enough for her that is a great deal to say, even if he
is not what her father was."

"There are few like him. But Allan is a good man, Will says, and he is
not one to be content with a false standard of goodness, or a low one.
He was a manly, pleasant lad, in the days when I kenned him. I daresay
his long warstle with the world didna leave him altogether scatheless;
but he's out of the world's grip now, I believe. God bless my bairn,
and the man of her choice."

There was a moment's silence. Mrs Snow turned to the window, and her
husband sat watching her,