ireplace and the shining candlesticks and the rag carpet on the floor
redeemed it from any feeling of discomfort, while the flowers that
filled the windows left an air of purity and sweetness.

"Come away, my lad, come away," said Mrs. Macgregor, who sat knitting
by the fire. "The night is chill enough. Come away up to the fire."

"Thanks, Mrs. Macgregor," said Brown, "it does me good to look at you
by the fire there with your knitting. When I'm an old man I only hope
I'll have a cozy hearthstone like this to draw up to, and on the other
side a cozy old lady like you with pink cheeks like these which I must
now kiss."

"Tut, tut, it's a daft laddie you are whatever," said the old lady,
blushing a little, but not ill-pleased. "Sit ye down yonder." Brown,
ever since his illness, when Mrs. Macgregor and Shock had nursed him
back from death's door two years ago, was one of the family, and,
indeed, he used endearments with the old lady that the undemonstrative
Shock would never have dared to use. "Ye're late, Hamish. Surely yon
man had much to say," said his mother, looking lovingly upon her great,
sturdy son.

"That he had, mother, and great it was, I can tell you."

Then Shock proceeded, after his habit, to give his mother a full share
of what he had been enjoying. Mrs. Macgregor listened intently, pausing
now and then in her knitting to ejaculate, "Well-a-well!" "Look at
that, now!" "Hear to him!" When Shock had finished, Brown broke in: "It
was truly magnificent, I assure you, Mrs. Macgregor, and the enthusiasm
of the man! And his yarns! Oh, he is truly, great!"

"And what would he be doing at the college?" enquired the old lady.
"There would not be much money there, I doubt."

"Men, mother, men," cried Shock with some excitement. "Volunteers for
the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the
foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits,
and the like."

Mrs. Macgregor sat silent, her needles flying fast and her lips pressed
together.

"I wish you could have heard him, Mrs. Macgregor," said Brown,
enthusiastically. "He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes
off the skin. That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not
give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it. 'I find a good
many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the
work expected of them, remuneration, prospects of advance, etc., always
want to lay the matter befo