outer door. 'Ye maun
sweir upo' her that, whan I want her, I sall hae her ohn demur, or I
sanna lat ye lay roset upo' her.'

'I swear 't, Robert; I sweir 't upo' her,' said the soutar hurriedly,
stretching out both his hands as if to receive some human being into his
embrace.

Robert placed the violin in those grimy hands. A look of heavenly
delight dawned over the hirsute and dirt-besmeared countenance, which
drooped into tenderness as he drew the bow across the instrument, and
wiled from her a thin wail as of sorrow at their long separation. He
then retreated into his den, and was soon sunk in a trance, deaf to
everything but the violin, from which no entreaties of Robert, who
longed for a lesson, could rouse him; so that he had to go home
grievously disappointed, and unrewarded for the risk he had run in
venturing the stolen visit.

Next time, however, he fared better; and he contrived so well that,
from the middle of June to the end of August, he had two lessons a week,
mostly upon the afternoons of holidays. For these his master thought
himself well paid by the use of the instrument between. And Robert made
great progress.

Occasionally he saw Miss St. John in the garden, and once or twice met
her in the town; but her desire to find in him a pupil had been greatly
quenched by her unfortunate conjecture as to the cause of his accident.
She had, however, gone so far as to mention the subject to her aunt, who
assured her that old Mrs. Falconer would as soon consent to his being
taught gambling as music. The idea, therefore, passed away; and beyond
a kind word or two when she met him, there was no further communication
between them. But Robert would often dream of waking from a swoon, and
finding his head lying on her lap, and her lovely face bending over him
full of kindness and concern.

By the way, Robert cared nothing for poetry. Virgil was too troublesome
to be enjoyed; and in English he had met with nothing but the dried
leaves and gum-flowers of the last century. Miss Letty once lent him The
Lady of the Lake; but before he had read the first canto through, his
grandmother laid her hands upon it, and, without saying a word, dropped
it behind a loose skirting-board in the pantry, where the mice soon made
it a ruin sad to behold. For Miss Letty, having heard from the woful
Robert of its strange disappearance, and guessing its cause, applied to
Mrs. Falconer for the volume; who forthwith, the tongs aiding, ext