ed
cool civility.

"Perhaps you have heard that Mr Finlay is my nephew?" she said.

"Indeed I have. Mr Finlay has told me a great deal about you, Mrs
Kilbannon, and about his life at Bross," Advena replied. "And he has
told me about you, too," she went on, turning to Christie Cameron.

"Indeed?" said she.

"Oh, a long time ago. He has been looking forward to your arrival for
some months, hasn't he?"

"We took our passages in December," said Miss Cameron.

"And you are to be married almost immediately, are you not?" Miss
Murchison continued, pleasantly.

Mrs Kilbannon had an inspiration. "Could he by any means have had the
banns cried?" she demanded of Christie, who looked piercingly at their
visitor for the answer.

"Oh, no," Advena laughed softly. "Presbyterians haven't that custom over
here--does it still exist anywhere? Mr Finlay told me himself."

"Has he informed all his acquaintances?" asked Mrs Kilbannon. "We
thought maybe his elders would be expecting to hear, or his Board of
Management. Or he might have just dropped a word to his Sessions Clerk.
But--"

Advena shook her head. "I think it unlikely," she said.

"Then why would he be telling you?" inquired the elder lady, bluntly.

"He told me, I suppose, because I have the honour to be a friend of
his," Advena said, smiling. "But he is not a man, is he, who makes many
friends? It is possible, I dare say, that he has mentioned it to no one
else."

Poor Advena! She had indeed uttered her ideal to unsympathetic
ears--brought her pig, as her father would have said, to the wrong
market. She sat before the ladies from Bross, Hugh Finlay's only
confidante. She sat handsome and upheld and not altogether penetrable, a
kind of gipsy to their understanding, though indeed the Romany strain in
her was beyond any divining of theirs. They, on their part, reposed in
their clothes with all their bristles out--what else could have been
expected of them?--convinced in their own minds that they had come not
only to a growing but to a forward country.

Mrs Kilbannon was perhaps a little severe. "I wonder that we have not
heard of you, Miss Murchison," said she, "but we are happy to make the
acquaintance of any of my nephew's friends. You will have heard him
preach, perhaps?"

"Often," said Advena, rising. "We have no one here who can compare with
him in preaching. There was very little reason why you should have heard
of me. I am--of no importance." She hesitated