pants of her place
and her husband's; to have a vivid experience of how they looked, spoke,
and lived; to see them in spirit--in their morning good wishes, their
noonday cares, their evening cheer, their nightly prayers? Was their
union only apparent? were they severed by a dim, shapeless,
insurmountable barrier, for ever together, yet for ever apart?

These shades lingered and abode with Leslie in her lonely vigils, ere
she distinguished whether their language was that of warning or
reproach. She studied their material likenesses--the last save one in
the picture-gallery--honest faces, bright with wholesome vigour; their
son Hector's was a finer physiognomy, but the light had left lip and
eye, and Leslie missed it as she gazed wistfully at these shadows, and
compared them with their living representative.

A stranger came to Otter: that was an unfrequent event, even when the
spring was advancing, and the boats which had been drawn up for the
winter were again launched in the cove, and the brown nets hung anew to
dry on the budding whins and gowans--the April gowans converting the
haugh into a "lily lea." Their nearest neighbour, only an occasional
resident among them, lounged over with his whip, dog-call, and dogs, and
entered the drawing-room at Otter, to be introduced for the first time
to its mistress. Leslie's instincts were hospitable, and they were by no
means strained by exercise; but she did not like this guest; she felt an
involuntary repugnance to him, although he was very courteous to
her--with an elaborate, ostentatious homage that astonished and confused
her. He was a man of Hector Garret's age, but, even in his rough coat,
with marked remains of youthful foppishness and pretension. He was a
tall man, with beard and moustache slightly silvered; his aquiline
features were sharpened and drawn; his bold searching eyes sunken. He
was a gentleman, even an accomplished and refined gentleman in manner
and accent--and yet there was about him a nameless coarseness, the
brutishness of self-indulgence and low aims and ends, which no polish
could efface or conceal.

Leslie, notwithstanding her slight knowledge of life, apprehended this,
and shrank from the man; but he addressed Hector Garret with the ease of
an intimate associate--and Hector Garret, with his pride and
scrupulousness, suffered the near approach, and only winced when the
stranger accosted Leslie, complimented Leslie, put himself coolly on the
footing