al studies. The weather was still cold,
and she had pressed him to keep her company, and enjoy the warmth of her
fire, which the early season rendered necessary. Not a word had she
uttered lest it might interrupt him, when, as she drew forth the thread
from her wheel, which had been idle but a few hours out of the
twenty-four, Sabbath days excepted, since her arrival at her present
abode, David looked up and inquired how many yards she could spin in a
minute.

"I ne'er thought anent it," she answered. "But why do ye ask, my
bairn?"

"Because I wish to calculate how many times the yarn you have spun since
we came here would encircle the globe," answered David.

"Oh, but to be sure a puir body like o' me could na' do sic a thing as
that," she exclaimed, rather aghast at the very idea of such a
performance. David, however, marking the yarn with his pen, bade her
spin away while he counted sixty.

He was engaged in his calculations when a quick eager step was heard on
the stair, and Donald, his countenance glowing with health and
animation, entered the room.

"Janet, I have had an offer, a magnificent offer," he exclaimed,
breathless from some other cause beyond the mere effort of mounting the
stairs. "I would consult no one, and would tell no one till I had seen
you. I was playing at golf on the links, when, rushing along, I ran
right against a gentleman who was standing watching the game. I stopped
to beg his pardon, when, looking up in his face, I was sure he was Mr
Todd, he who was grieve o' the laird of Glenvarlock, and used to come
often to the manse and ha' a crack with our father. Many is the time he
has carried me in front of him on his horse, and lent me a pony to ride.
I asked him--I was right--I told him my name, and that I was at the
High School here, and Margaret and David and I were living with you. He
shook me warmly by the hand, and said he was very glad to meet with me,
inquiring what I thought of doing, and many other questions. He then
begged, as soon as the game was over, that I would accompany him to his
lodgings. `I have been thinking of something for you, Donald,' he said,
when I rejoined him. `I am preparing to start, as soon as the spring
commences, at the head of a party of emigrants to settle on a large
tract of land in Upper Canada, and I want the assistance of one or two
active young men, with heads on their shoulders, who have their way to
make in the world. I have been out