g to see efter i' the still-room," said the housekeeper.
"You sit here and hae yer crack. Sit doon, Mr. Grant. I'm glad to see
you an' my lady come to word o' mooth at last. I began to think it wud
never be!"

Had Donal been in the way of looking to faces for the interpretation of
words and thoughts, he would have seen a shadow sweep over lady
Arctura's, followed by a flush, which he would have attributed to
displeasure at this utterance of the housekeeper. But, with all his
experience of the world within, and all his unusually developed power
of entering into the feelings of others, he had never come to pry into
those feelings, or to study their phenomena for the sake of possessing
himself of them. Man was by no means an open book to him--"no, nor
woman neither," but he would have scorned to supplement by such
investigation what a lady chose to tell him. He sat looking into the
fire, with an occasional upward glance, waiting for what was to come,
and saw neither shadow nor flush. Lady Arctura sat also gazing into the
fire, and seemed in no haste to begin.

"You are so good to Davie!" she said at length, and stopped.

"No better than I have to be," returned Donal. "Not to be good to Davie
would be to be a wretch."

"You know, Mr. Grant, I cannot agree with you!"

"There is no immediate necessity, my lady."

"But I suppose one may be fair to another!" she went on, doubtingly,
"--and it is only fair to confess that he is much more manageable since
you came. Only that is no good if it does not come from the right
source."

"Grapes do not come from thorns, my lady. We must not allow in evil a
power of good."

She did not reply.

"He minds everything I say to him now," she resumed. "What is it makes
him so good?--I wish I had had such a tutor!"

She stopped again: she had spoken out of the simplicity of her thought,
but the words when said looked to her as if they ought not to have been
said.

"Something is working in her!" thought Donal. "She is so different! Her
voice is different!"

"But that is not what I wanted to speak to you about, Mr. Grant," she
re-commenced, "--though I did want you to know I was aware of the
improvement in Davie. I wished to say something about my uncle."

Here followed another pause.

"You may have remarked," she said at length, "that, though we live
together, and he is my guardian, and the head of the house, there is
not much communication between us."

"I have gathered as m