it ower with the
gudewife, and then I shall have the scales cleart frae my een. Gude
day, sir. Noo, Peter. Ah! laddie, ye shouldna ha' ta'en that
sovereign; but there, I dinna ken but what ye're right. Ye savit the
laddie's life; and I think that its warth mair than a gowd sovereign to
him."

The next minute Brace Norton, now almost giddy with excitement, strode
away. He had had a most narrow escape of his life, but he told himself
that he could afford to be generous, for had not Isa that morning owned
how painful it was to pass a day without seeing him? He was more and
more, too, in her confidence, and she had told him of her fathers morose
looks, and of how she found that he knew of their interviews, although
he had not spoken a word, but, as was his wont at times, shut himself up
from all intercourse, leaving her entirely to the persecution of her
detested suitor.

"I cannot help leaving the house all I can," she had said, naively. "If
he would only go, see my dislike, or be generous, I would not care; but
I believe he proposed to my father when we first encountered him in
Italy, and my father acceded to his propositions."

Then they had talked about the future, and forgetting what he had since
gone through, Brace recalled all: how he had whispered comfort to her,
and told her to hope. Of how he fully expected that the day would come
when the old enmity of her father would be swept away, and that in spite
of all the black clouds around them now, the sun would shine forth at
last.

"This old mysterious story must have a solution," he had said; "but
there, I will not revert to it!" Then they parted, and thinking upon it
all more deeply than ever, Brace's musings were interrupted as we have
seen by the coming of the man upon whom his thoughts had turned.

Book 2, Chapter XVII.

TANGLED.

Two days--four days, and a week passed, and Brace did not see Isa. He
sought all her favourite rides, and waited about for hours, but she did
not come. He felt sure that something was wrong, and wondered again and
again whether that something was connected with the meeting with Lord
Maudlaine. As the days passed, Brace's mind was incessantly tortured by
imaginings of garbled accounts, of insidious attempts to poison the ear
of Isa, and at length his anxiety became almost unbearable. If he had
made some arrangement by which he might have sent a letter, he would not
have cared, but, under the circumstances, he felt t