hat house since
quiet Elspeth left it, "I have never thanked you in words for all that
you have done for me and Elspeth."

"Dinna do it now, then," replied the warper, fidgeting.

"I must," Tommy said cheerily, "I must"; and he did, while Aaron
scowled.

"It was never done for you," Aaron informed him, "nor for the father
you are the marrows o'."

"It was done for my mother," said Tommy, reverently.

"I'm none so sure o't," Aaron rapped out. "I think I brocht you twa
here as bairns, that the reminder of my shame should ever stand before
me."

But Tommy shook his head, and sat down sympathetically beside the
warper. "You loved her, Aaron," he said simply. "It was an undying
love that made you adopt her orphan children." A charming thought came
to him. "When you brought us here," he said, with some elation,
"Elspeth used to cry at nights because our mother's spirit did not
come to us to comfort us, and I invented boyish explanations to
appease her. But I have learned since why we did not see that spirit;
for though it hovered round this house, its first thought was not for
us, but for him who succoured us."

He could have made it much better had he been able to revise it, but
surely it was touching, and Aaron need not have said "Damn," which was
what he did say.

One knows how most men would have received so harsh an answer to such
gentle words, and we can conceive how a very holy man, say a monk,
would have bowed to it. Even as the monk did Tommy submit, or say
rather with the meekness of a nun.

"I wish I could help you in any way, Aaron," he said, with a sigh.

"You can," replied Aaron, promptly, "by taking yourself off to London,
and leaving Elspeth here wi' me. I never made pretence that I wanted
you, except because she wouldna come without you. Laddie and man, as
weel you ken, you were aye a scunner to me."

"And yet," said Tommy, looking at him admiringly, "you fed and housed
and educated us. Ah, Aaron, do you not see that your dislike gives me
the more reason only to esteem you?" Carried away by desire to help
the old man, he put his hand kindly on his shoulder. "You have never
respected yourself," he said, "since the night you and my mother
parted at the Cuttle Well, and my heart bleeds to think of it. Many a
year ago, by your kindness to two forlorn children, you expiated that
sin, and it is blotted out from your account. Forget it, Aaron, as
every other person has forgotten it, and let the spirit