ere; but, indeed, the
Kers were hard to bear.

His daughter met him with a grave face. The determined Hutchison blood
ran still and sure in her veins.

"Father," she said, "what I am going to tell you will give you pain: I
have promised to marry Duncan Rowallan."

The stern old minister swayed--doubting whether he had heard aright.

"Marry Duncan Rowallan, the dominie!" he said; "the lassie's gane gyte!
He's dismissed and a pauper!"

"No," she said; "on the contrary, he has got a mastership at the High
School. I have promised to marry him."

The old man said no word. He did not try to hector Grace, as he would
have done any one outside the manse. Her household autocracy asserted
itself even in that supreme moment. Besides, he knew that it would be so
useless, for she was his own child. He put one hand up uncertainly and
smoothed his brow vaguely, as though something hurt him and he did not
understand.

He sat down in his great chair, and took up a little fire-screen that
had stood many years by his chair. Grace had worked it as a sampler when
as a little girl she went to the village school and had slept at night
in his room in a little trundle-bed. He looked at it strangely.

"Grade," he said, "Gracie--my wee Gracie!"--and then he set the
fire-screen down very gently. "I am an old man and full of years," he
said. He looked worn and broken.

Grace went quickly and put her arms about his neck.

"No, no, father," she said; "you have only gained a son."

But the old man's passions could not turn so quickly, not having the
pliancy of youth and love. He only shook his head sadly.

"Not so," he said; "I am left a lonely man--my house is left unto me
desolate."

Yet, nevertheless, Grace was right. He stays with them for a month every
Assembly time, and lectures them daily on the relations of Church and
State.

II

A FINISHED YOUNG LADY

I

_I cannot send thee gold
Nor silver for a show;
Nor are there jewels sold
One-half so dear as thou_.

II

_No daffodil doth blow
In this dull winter time,
Nor purple violet grow
In so unkind a clime_.

III

_To-day I have not got
One spray of meadow-sweet,
Nor blue forget-me-not
My posy to complete_.

IV

_Yet none of these can claim
So much goodwill as you;
Their lips put not to shame
Cowslip end Oxlip too_.

V

_But joy I'll take in this,
Pleasure more sweet than all,
If thou this book but ki