man's hand, ready to sign the paper, that the faintest misgiving
crossed Rothesay's mind.

"Stay, it is but for a few days--yet life sometimes ends in an hour.
What if I should die, at once, before I can requite you? Mr. Gwynne, you
shall not do it."

"He _shall_--I mean, he will," answered the mother.

"But not until I have secured him in some way."

"Nay, Angus; we 'auld acquaintance' should not thus bargain away our
friendship," said Mrs. Gwynne, with wounded pride--Highland pride. "And
besides, there is no time to lose. Here is the acceptance ready--so,
Harold, sign!"

Harold did sign. The instant after, glad to escape, he quitted the room.

Angus Rothesay sank on a chair with a heart-deep sigh of relief. It was
done now. He eyed with thankfulness the paper which had secured him the
golden prize.

"It is but a trifle--a sum not worth naming," he muttered to himself;
and so, indeed, it seemed to one who had "turned over" thousands like
mere heaps of dust. He never thought that it was an amount equal to
Harold's yearly income for which the young man had thus become bound.

Yet he omitted not again and again to thank Mrs. Gwynne, and with
excited eagerness to point to all the prospects now before him.

"And besides, you cannot think from what you have saved me--the
annoyance--the shame of breaking my word. Oh, my friend, you know not in
what a whirling, restless world of commerce I live! To fail in anything,
or to be thought to fail, would positively ruin me and drive me mad."

"Angus--old companion!" answered Mrs. Gwynne, regarding him earnestly,
"you must not blame me if I speak plainly. In one week I have seen far
into your heart--farther than you think. Be advised by me; change this
life for one more calm. Home and its blessings never come too late."

"You are right," said Angus. "I sometimes think that all is not well
with me. I am growing old, and business racks my head sadly sometimes.
Feel it now!"

He carried to his brow her hand--the hand which had led him when a boy,
which in his fantastic dream of youth he had many a time kissed; even
now, when the pulses were grown leaden with age, it felt cool, calm,
like the touch of some pitying and protecting angel.

Alison Gwynne said gently, "My friend, you say truly all is not well
with you. Let us put aside all business, and walk in the garden. Come!"

Captain Rothesay lingered at Harbury yet one day more. But he could
not stay longer, for this impo