ued. It was
accident that brought the three letters the same day, and that gave them
into my hand in the same room with James More; and of all the events
that flowed from that accident, and which I might have prevented if I
had held my tongue, the truth is that they were preordained before
Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels.

The first that I opened was naturally Alan's; and what more natural than
that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed James to
sit up with an air of immediate attention.

"Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?" he
inquired.

I told him, "Ay," it was the same; and he withheld me some time from my
other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan's manner of life in
France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now
proposed.

"All we forfeited folk hang a little together," he explained, "and
besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not the thing,
and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very
much admired in the day of Drummossie. He did there like a soldier; if
some that need not be named had done as well, the upshot need not have
been so melancholy to remember. There were two that did their best that
day, and it makes a bond between the pair of us," says he.

I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could
almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little
further into that mention of his birth. Though, they tell me, the same
was indeed not wholly regular.

Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an
exclamation.

"Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was
arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom fairly,
I am the laird of Shaws indeed--my uncle is dead at last."

She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat. The next moment it
must have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was left
to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each other sadly.

But James showed himself a ready hypocrite. "My daughter," says he, "is
this how my cousin learned you to behave? Mr. David has lost a near
friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement."

"Troth, sir," said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, "I can make no
such faces. His death is as blythe news as ever I got."

"It's a good soldier's philosophy," says James.