kly, "I was masterful as a boy, ah, and even
quite lately. How we change!" he said musingly.

"How we dinna change!" retorted Aaron, bitterly. He had learned the
truer philosophy.

"Man," he continued, looking Tommy over, "there's times when I see
mair o' your mother than your father in you. She was a wonder at
making believe. The letters about her grandeur that she wrote to
Thrums when she was starving! Even you couldna hae wrote them better.
But she never managed to cheat hersel'. That's whaur you sail away
frae her."

"I used to make believe, Aaron, as you say," Tommy replied sadly. "If
you knew how I feel the folly of it now, perhaps even you would wish
that I felt it less.

"But we must each of us dree his own weird," he proceeded, with
wonderful sweetness, when Aaron did not answer. "And so far, at least,
as Elspeth is concerned, surely I have done my duty. I had the
bringing up of her from the days when she was learning to speak."

"She got into the way o' letting you do everything for her," the
warper responded sourly. "You thought for her, you acted for her, frae
the first; you toomed her, and then filled her up wi' yoursel'."

"She always needed some one to lean on."

"Ay, because you had maimed her. She grew up in the notion that you
were all the earth and the wonder o' the world."

"Could I help that?"

"Help it! Did you try? It was the one thing you were sure o' yoursel';
it was the one thing you thought worth anybody's learning. You stood
before her crowing the whole day. I said the now I wished you would go
and leave her wi' me: but I wouldna dare to keep her; she's helpless
without you; if you took your arm awa frae her now, she would tumble
to the ground."

"I fear it is true, Aaron," Tommy said, with bent head. "Whether she
is so by nature, or whether I have made her so, I cannot tell, but I
fear that what you say is true."

"It's true," said Aaron, "and yours is the wite. There's no life for
her now except what you mak'; she canna see beyond you. Go on thinking
yoursel' a wonder if you like, but mind this: if you were to cast her
off frae you now, she would die like an amputated hand."

To Tommy it was like listening to his doom. Ah, Aaron, even you could
not withhold your pity, did you know how this man is being punished
now for having made Elspeth so dependent on him! Some such thought
passed through Tommy's head, but he was too brave to appeal for pity.
"If that is so," he said firm