," rejoined Bruce; "but a body maun hae
their ain for a' that. Wadna the kirk gie ye the ither thrippence?"

"Do ye think I wad tak frae the kirk to pit into your till?"

"Weel, say saivenpence, than, and we'll be quits."

"I tell ye what, Robert Bruce: raither nor pay ye one bawbee more nor
the saxpence, I'll turn oot i' the snaw, and lat the Lord luik efter
me."

Robert Bruce went away, and did not purchase the cottage, which was in
the market at a low price, He had intended Tibbie to believe, as she
did, that he had already bought it; and if she had agreed to pay even
the sevenpence, he would have gone from her to secure it.

On her way to Howglen, Annie pondered on the delight of Tibbie--Tibbie
Dyster who had never seen the "human face divine"--when she should see
the face of Jesus Christ, most likely the first face she would see.
Then she turned to what Tibbie had said about knowing light from
knowing the Saviour. There must be some connection between what Tibbie
said and what Thomas had said about the face of God. There was a text
that said "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." So she was
sure that the light that was in a Christian, whatever it meant, must
come from the face of God. And so what Thomas said and what Tibbie said
might be only different ways of saying the same thing.

Thus she was in a measure saved from the perplexity which comes of any
_one_ definition of the holy secret, compelling a man to walk in a way
between walls, instead of in a path across open fields.

There was no day yet in which Annie did not think of her old champion
with the same feeling of devotion which his championship had first
aroused, although all her necessities, hopes, and fears were now beyond
any assistance he could render. She was far on in a new path: he was
loitering behind, out of hearing, He would not have dared to call her
solicitude nonsense; but he would have set down all such matters as
belonging to women, rather than youths beginning the world. The lessons
of Thomas Crann were not despised, for he never thought about them. He
began to look down upon all his past, and, in it, upon his old
companions. Since knowing Kate, who had more delicate habits and ways
than he had ever seen, he had begun to refine his own modes concerning
outside things; and in his anxiety to be like her, while he became more
polished, he became less genial and wide-hearted.

But none of his old friends forgot him. I believe