i' my darnin' though.'

'I have no mother to find fault with it,' said Ericson.

'Weel, a sister's waur.'

'I have no sister, either.'

This was too much for Miss Letty. She could keep up the bravado of
humour no longer. She fairly burst out crying. In a moment more the
shoes and stockings were off, and the blisters in the hot water. Miss
Letty's tears dropped into the tub, and the salt in them did not hurt
the feet with which she busied herself, more than was necessary, to hide
them.

But no sooner had she recovered herself than she resumed her former
tone.

'A shillin'! said ye? An' a' thae greedy gleds (kites) o' professors to
pay, that live upo' the verra blude and banes o' sair-vroucht students!
Hoo cud ye hae a shillin' ower? Troth, it's nae wonner ye haena ane
left. An' a' the merchan's there jist leevin' upo' ye! Lord hae a care
o' 's! sic bonnie feet!--Wi' blisters I mean. I never saw sic a sicht o'
raw puddin's in my life. Ye're no fit to come doon the stair again.'

All the time she was tenderly washing and bathing the weary feet. When
she had dressed them and tied them up, she took the tub of water and
carried it away, but turned at the door.

'Ye'll jist mak up yer min' to bide a twa three days,' she said; 'for
thae feet cudna bide to be carried, no to say to carry a weicht like
you. There's naebody to luik for ye, ye ken. An' ye're no to come doon
the nicht. I'll sen' up yer supper. And Robert there 'll bide and keep
ye company.'

She vanished; and a moment after, Peggy appeared with a salamander--that
is a huge poker, ending not in a point, but a red-hot ace of
spades--which she thrust between the bars of the grate, into the heart
of a nest of brushwood. Presently a cheerful fire illuminated the room.

Ericson was seated on one chair, with his feet on another, his head
sunk on his bosom, and his eyes thinking. There was something about him
almost as powerfully attractive to Robert as it had been to Miss Letty.
So he sat gazing at him, and longing for a chance of doing something for
him. He had reverence already, and some love, but he had never felt
at all as he felt towards this man. Nor was it as the Chinese puzzlers
called Scotch metaphysicians, might have represented it--a combination
of love and reverence. It was the recognition of the eternal brotherhood
between him and one nobler than himself--hence a lovely eager worship.

Seeing Ericson look about him as if he wanted something, Robert