ught; and the burthen of mine was an unnatural
jealousy of the dead man for Mr. Henry's sake, that had even then begun
to grow on me.

I am keeping Mrs. Henry for the last, so that this expression of my
sentiment may seem unwarrantably strong: the reader shall judge for
himself when I have done. But I must first tell of another matter, which
was the means of bringing me more intimate. I had not yet been six
months at Durrisdeer when it chanced that John Paul fell sick and must
keep his bed; drink was the root of his malady, in my poor thought; but
he was tended, and indeed carried himself, like an afflicted saint; and
the very minister, who came to visit him, professed himself edified when
he went away. The third morning of his sickness Mr. Henry comes to me
with something of a hang-dog look.

"Mackellar," says he, "I wish I could trouble you upon a little service.
There is a pension we pay; it is John's part to carry it, and now that
he is sick I know not to whom I should look, unless it was yourself. The
matter is very delicate; I could not carry it with my own hand for a
sufficient reason; I dare not send Macconochie, who is a talker, and I
am--I have--I am desirous this should not come to Mrs. Henry's ears,"
says he, and flushed to his neck as he said it.

To say truth, when I found I was to carry money to one Jessie Broun, who
was no better than she should be, I supposed it was some trip of his own
that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I was the more impressed when the truth
came out.

It was up a wynd off a side street in St. Bride's that Jessie had her
lodging. The place was very ill inhabited, mostly by the free-trading
sort. There was a man with a broken head at the entry; half-way up, in a
tavern, fellows were roaring and singing, though it was not yet nine in
the day. Altogether, I had never seen a worse neighbourhood, even in the
great city of Edinburgh, and I was in two minds to go back. Jessie's
room was of a piece with her surroundings, and herself no better. She
would not give me the receipt (which Mr. Henry had told me to demand,
for he was very methodical) until she had sent out for spirits, and I
had pledged her in a glass; and all the time she carried on in a
light-headed, reckless way--now aping the manners of a lady, now
breaking into unseemly mirth, now making coquettish advances that
oppressed me to the ground. Of the money she spoke more tragically.

"It's blood-money!" said she; "I take it for t