How wounded he must feel by
her callousness!

But the most satisfactory consequence of all was the cessation of
inquiries for any other Walkingshaw than Andrew. He considered himself
justified in holding that this tacitly implied an admission that nobody
could desire a better lawyer than he. And as there were none to
contradict this assumption (since he had always made a point of avoiding
the candid critic like the Devil, the impecunious school friend, and
Sunday golf), he derived from it the full gratification to which he was
entitled.

Never, surely, was there a more signal triumph for the meek. His brother
had abused him, and he was now broiling in India, torn for ever from his
betrothed; his sister had snubbed him, and there she was homeless in
London slaving in a hospital; Mrs. Dunbar had smacked his face, and she
was an exile in the moors of Ross-shire; and now here was his father,
who had plagued and despised him, numbered in the list of the deceased.
Alas for Heriot Walkingshaw! He had despised the wrong man when he
despised Andrew. "The Example is dead; long live the Example!" might
well have been inscribed upon his tombstone, had their friends been able
to learn precisely where that monument was situated.

CHAPTER II

It is pleasant to be able to turn (still adhering closely to the facts
as they occurred) from tombstones to orange blossom. His friends
unanimously felt that Andrew, having suffered so much and so heroically,
should now obtain the consolation he deserved. Among his many virtues
none was more remarkable than his instinct for doing exactly what was
expected of him, and at precisely the right moment. Forthwith he
announced his engagement to Miss Catherine Henderson, whose father's
residence had been used as the test by which Heriot first realized his
disastrous return to youth. Mr. Henderson was now defunct, but his
possessions served a better purpose than being stared at by a reprobate
neighbor. They passed, in fact, into Andrew's keeping.

The lady who accompanied them was, of course, an only child, and the
income of two thousand pounds a year she enjoyed was derived from such
extraordinarily safe investments that even the cautious Andrew, when he
went into her affairs with a fellow-solicitor (on the week before he
proposed), remarked at once that he saw an increase of three hundred and
fifty pounds to be got without risking a halfpenny. As she was only four
years older than he, the