e you?" said Dr Drummond. "Then let us see if the Lord can.
You will not object, Finlay, to bring the matter before Him, here and
now, in a few words of prayer? I should find it hard to let you go
without them."

They went down upon their knees where they stood; and Dr Drummond did
little less than order Divine interference; but the prayer that was
inaudible was to the opposite purpose.

Ten minutes later the minister himself opened the door to let Finlay out
into the night. "You will remember," he said as they shook hands,
"that what I think of your position in this matter makes no difference
whatever to the question of your aunt's coming here with Miss Cameron
when they arrive. You will bring them to this house as a matter of
course. I wish you could be guided to a different conclusion but, after
all, it is your own conscience that must be satisfied. They will be
better here than at the Murchisons'," he added with a last shaft of
reproach, "and they will be very welcome."

It said much for Dr Drummond that Finlay was able to fall in with the
arrangement. He went back to his boarding-house, and added a postscript
embodying it to his letter to Bross. Then he walked out upon the
midnight two feverish miles to the town, and posted the letter. The way
back was longer and colder.

CHAPTER XXII

"Well, Winter," said Octavius Milburn, "I expect there's business in
this for you."

Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking their boxes at
the post-office. Elgin had enjoyed postal delivery for several years,
but not so much as to induce men of business to abandon the post-office
box that had been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry.
In time the boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in for your own
noonday mail on the way home to dinner was deep-rooted, and undoubtedly
you got it earlier. Moreover, it takes time to engender confidence in
a postman when he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly
well that he would otherwise be driving the mere watering-cart, or
delivering the mere ice, as he was last year.

"Looks like it," responded Mr Winter, cheerfully. "The boys have been
round as usual. I told them they'd better try another shop this time,
but they seemed to think the old reliable was good enough to go on
with."

This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently simple. On
that day there was only one serious topic in Elgin, and there could have
been only o