ender situations: the schoolhouse in which they
had studied cheek to cheek over one book; the little stream in which
they had paddled and fished on holidays, the fir-wood, the misty
corries, and the heathery mountains of Argyle; above all, he
remembered the last time that he had ever seen the bright young face
marching at the head of his company down Buchanan street on his way to
India. David's mother was a still tenderer memory, and John
Callendar's eyes grew misty as his heart forced him to recall that
dark, wintry afternoon when she had brought David to him, and he had
solemnly promised to be a father to the lad. It was the last promise
between them; three weeks afterwards he stood at her grave's side.
Time is said to dim such memories as these. It never does. After many
years some sudden event recalls the great crises of any life with all
the vividness of their first occurrence.

Confused as these memories were, they blended with an equal confusion
of feelings. Love, anger, regret, fear, perplexity, condemnation,
excuse, followed close on each other, and John's mind, though
remarkably clear and acute, was one trained rather to the
consideration of things point by point than to the catching of the
proper clew in a mental labyrinth. After an hour's miserable
uncertainty he was still in doubt what to do. The one point of comfort
he had been able to reach was the hope that David had gone straight to
Jenny with his grievance. "And though women-folk arena much as
counsellors," thought John, "they are wonderfu' comforters; and Jenny
will ne'er hear tell o' his leaving the house; sae there will be time
to put right what is wrong."

But though David had always hitherto, when lessons were hard or
lassies scornful, gone with his troubles to the faithful Jenny, he did
not do so at this time. He did not even bid her "Good-night," and
there was such a look on his face that she considered it prudent not
to challenge the omission.

"It will be either money or marriage," she thought. "If it be money,
the deacon has mair than is good for him to hae; if it be marriage, it
will be Isabel Strang, and that the deacon wont like. But it is his
ain wife Davie is choosing, and I am for letting the lad hae the lass
he likes best."

Jenny had come to these conclusions in ten minutes, but she waited
patiently for an hour before she interrupted her master. Then the
clock struck midnight, and she felt herself aggrieved. "Deacon," she
said s