said she.

"She threw me a paper across the table that I kenned for Maxwell's by
the crunkle o' the sheets.

"I ripit a' my pooches, yin after the ither.

"'I misdoot I maun hae comed awa' withoot my specs, Tibby,' says I at
last, when I could come on them nowhere.

"So we talked a bit langer, and she screeved aboot, pittin' things into
their places.

"'It's a fine nicht for gettin' hame,' she says, at the hinder end.

"This was, as ye may say, something like a hint, but I was determined to
hae it oot wi' her that nicht. An' so I had, though no' in the way I had
intended exactly.

"'It _is_ a fine nicht,' says I; 'but I ken by the pains in the sma' o'
my back that it's gaun to be a storm.'

"Wi' that, as if a bee had stang'd her, Tibby cam' to the ither side o'
the table frae whaur I was sittin'--as it micht be there--an' she set
her hands on the edge o't wi' the loofs doon (I think I see her noo; she
looked awsome bonny), an' says she--

"'Tammas Thackanraip, ye are a decent man, but ye are wasting your time
comin' here coortin' me,' she says. 'Gin ye think that Tibby o' the
Hilltap is gaun to marry a man wi' his een in his pooch an' a
weather-glass in the sma' o' his back, ye're maist notoriously
mista'en,' says she."

There was silence in the kitchen after that, so that we could hear the
clock ticking time about with my wife's needles.

"So I cam' awa'," at last said Tammock, sadly.

"An' what hae ye dune aboot it?" asked my wife, sympathetically.

"Dune aboot it?" said Tammas; "I juist speered Bell Mulwhulter when I
cam' hame."

"An' what said she?" asked the mistress.

"Oh," cried Tammas, "she said it was raither near the eleeventh 'oor,
but that she had nae objections that she kenned o'."

IV

THE OLD TORY

_One man alone,
Amid the general consent of tongues.
For his point's sake bore his point--
Then, unrepenting, died_.

The first time I ever saw the Old Tory, he was scurrying down the street
of the Radical village where he lived, with a score of men after him.
Clods and stones were flying, and the Old Tory had his hand up to
protect his head. Yet ever as he fled, he turned him about to cry an
epithet injurious to the good name of some great Radical leader. It was
a time when the political atmosphere was prickly with electricity, and
men's passions easily flared up--specially the passions of those who had
nothing whatever to do with the matter.

The