more annoyed, and the intercourse between mother and
son was forced and uncomfortable. As soon as she retired to rest, Alec
bounded up stairs again.

"Never mind my mother," he cried. "She's a good woman, but she's vexed
with me, and lets it out on you."

"Mind her!" answered Mr Cupples; "she's a verra fine woman; and she may
say what she likes to me. She'll be a' richt the morn's mornin'. A
woman wi' ae son's like a coo wi' ae horn, some kittle (ticklish), ye
ken. I cud see in her een haill coal-pits o' affection. She wad dee for
ye, afore ye cud say--'Dinna, mither.'"

Next day they went to call on Professor Fraser. He received them
kindly, and thanked Mrs Forbes for her attentions to his niece. But he
seemed oppressed and troubled. His niece was far from well, he
said--had not left her room for some weeks, and could see no one.

Mrs Forbes associated Alec's conduct with Kate's illness, but said
nothing about her suspicions. After one day more, she returned home,
reassured by but not satisfied with her visit. She felt that Alec had
outgrown his former relation to her, and had a dim perception that her
pride had prevented them from entering upon a yet closer relation. It
is their own fault when mothers lose by the _growth_ of their children.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

Meantime, Annie was passing through a strange experience. It gave her a
dreadful shock to know that such things were reported of her hero, her
champion. They could not be true, else Chaos was come again. But when
no exultant denial of them arrived from the pen of his mother, although
she wrote as she had promised, then she understood by degrees that the
youth had erred from the path, and had denied the Lord that bought him.
She brooded and fancied and recoiled till the thought of him became so
painful that she turned from it, rather than from him, with discomfort
amounting almost to disgust. He had been to her the centre of all that
was noble and true. And he revelled in company of which she knew
nothing except from far-off hints of unapproachable pollution! Her idol
all of silver hue was blackened with the breath of sulphur, and the
world was overspread with the darkness which radiated from it.

In this mood she went to the week-evening service at Mr Turnbull's
chapel. There she sat listless, looking for no help, and caring for
none of the hymns or prayers. At length Mr Turnbull began to read the
story of the Prodigal Son. And during the read