the table. Saunders picked a couple of them up, and,
having adjusted his glasses, he read the titles--Milton's Works, and a
volume of a translation of Dorner's Person of Christ.

'I saw yer brither the day; he maun be gettin' a big practice!'

'Ay!' said Robert Fraser, very thoughtfully.

Saunders M'Quhirr glanced up quickly. It was, of course, natural that
the unsuccessful elder brother should envy the prosperous younger, but
he had thought that Robert Fraser was living on a different plane. It
was one of the few things that the friends had never spoken of, though
every one knew why Dr. Fraser did not visit his brother's little farm.
'He's gettin' in wi' the big fowk noo, an' thinks maybe that his
brither wad do him nae credit.' That was the way the clash of the
country-side explained the matter.

'I never told you how I came to leave the college, Saunders,' said the
younger man, resting his brow on a hand that even the horn of the
plough could not make other than diaphanous.

'No,' said Saunders quietly, with a tender gleam coming into the
humorsome kindly eyes that lurked under their bushy tussocks of grey
eyebrow. Saunders's humour lay near the Fountain of Tears.

'No,' continued Robert Fraser, 'I have not spoken of it to so many; but
you've been a good frien' to me, Saunders, and I think you should hear
it. I have not tried to set myself right with folks in the general,
but I would like to let you see clearly before I go my ways to Him who
seeth from the beginning.'

'Hear till him,' said Saunders; 'man, yer hoast is no' near as sair as
it was i' the back-end. Ye'll be here lang efter me; but lang or
short, weel do ye ken, Robert Fraser, that ye need not to pit yersel'
richt wi' me. Hae I no' kenned ye sins ye war the sic o' twa
scrubbers?'

'I thank you, Saunders,' said Robert, 'but I am well aware that I'm to
die this year. No, no, not a word. It is the Lord's will! It's mair
than seven year now since I first kenned that my days were to be few.
It was the year my faither died, and left Harry and me by our lane.

'He left no siller to speak of, just plenty to lay him decently in the
kirkyard among his forebears. I had been a year at the Divinity Hall
then, and was going up to put in my discourses for the next session. I
had been troubled with my breast for some time, and so called one day
at the infirmary to get a word with Sir James. He was very busy when I
went in, and never noticed me t