away to these grand folks to-night, and there's an end of me.'

'An end of you, Walter! What do you mean?' she asked, with a puzzled
air.

'Just what I say. When you turn your back on Colquhoun Street, it's
bound to be for ever. You'll be West, I East. There's no comings and
goings between the two.'

'I think you are very unkind to speak like that, and silly as well,' she
said quickly.

'Maybe, but it's true all the same,' he answered, with a slight touch of
bitterness.

'And you deserve to be punished for it,' she continued, with her quaint
dignity; 'only I cannot quite make up my mind how to punish you, or,
indeed, to do it at all to-day. Look, Walter,' she stopped him on the
brow of the hill, with a light touch on his arm which thrilled him as it
had never yet done, and sent the blood to his face.

'See, away over there, almost as far as you can see, on yon little hill
where the trees are so green and lovely, is Bourhill, where the Grahams
used to live. I told you how Uncle Abel said papa had such a desire to
buy it. If I were a rich woman I think I should buy Bourhill.'

'So you will. I wish _I_ could give it to you,' cried Walter quickly.

'Do you? You are very good. You have always been so good and kind to me,
Walter,' she said dreamily. 'Yes, that is Bourhill; and just think, you
can see the sea from it--the real sea, which I have never seen in my
life.'

'You'll get everything and see everything you want soon,' he said in a
quiet, dull voice; 'and then you'll forget all that went before.'

'We shall see.'

She was hurt by the abrupt coldness of his manner, and, having her own
pride of spirit, did not seek to hide it.

'See, that is Mossgiel there, and we have no time to go up. I think Mr.
Fordyce said we must turn here,' she said, changing the subject,
woman-like, when it did not please her. 'But when it is summer you and I
will come to Mauchline for a day together, and gather some daisies from
the field where Burns wrote his poem to the daisy--that is,' she added,
with a smile, 'if you are not disagreeable, which I must say, Walter,
you are to-day--most disagreeable indeed.'

She turned and looked at him then for a moment with an earnest, somewhat
critical look, and she saw a tall, slender youth, whose figure had not
attained to its full breadth and stature, but whose face--grave,
earnest, noble, even--spoke of the experience of life. These two years
had done much for Walter Hepburn, and she be