e, that all maun be ended between you and me--it's best
for baith our sakes."

"Ended!" said Butler, in surprise; "and for what should it be ended?--I
grant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies neither at your door nor
mine--it's an evil of God's sending, and it must be borne; but it cannot
break plighted troth, Jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish to
keep it."

"But, Reuben," said the young woman, looking at him affectionately, "I
ken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself; and, Reuben, I can only
in requital think mair of your weal than of my ain. Ye are a man of
spotless name, bred to God's ministry, and a' men say that ye will some
day rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e'en now. Poverty
is a bad back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame is
a waur ane, and that is a truth ye sall never learn through my means."

"What do you mean?" said Butler, eagerly and impatiently; "or how do you
connect your sister's guilt, if guilt there be, which, I trust in God,
may yet be disproved, with our engagement?--how can that affect you or
me?"

"How can you ask me that, Mr. Butler? Will this stain, d'ye think, ever
be forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune the grund? Will it not stick
to us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns' bairns? To hae been
the child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me and
mine; but to be the sister of a--O my God!"--With this exclamation her
resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears.

The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at
length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself
with the same positiveness as before. "No, Reuben, I'll bring disgrace
hame to nae man's hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear,
but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk's shouthers. I
will bear my load alone--the back is made for the burden."

A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie's readiness to
renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mind
and respectability of character, seemed to poor Butler to form a
portentous combination with the commission of the stranger he had met
with that morning. His voice faltered as he asked, "whether nothing but a
sense of her sister's present distress occasioned her to talk in that
manner?"

"And what else can do sae?" she replied with simplicity. "Is it not ten
l