u learned folk caa' an avalanche?"

CHAPTER XXX

THE VANISHING LADY

During the next three years (and that is a long driech time) I made many
excuses for not going down to Eden Valley. I cannot say whether I
managed to get myself believed or not. But the fact of the matter is,
that, as things were, I could not bring myself to face Irma again and so
bring back the pain. My father had come up to see me twice. Once he had
brought my mother, of whom Mrs. Craven had made much, recognizing a
kindred refinement of spirit. But Amelia and my Aunt Jen (who came at
the time of the General Assembly) learned to respect one another--all
the more that they had been highly prejudiced before meeting.

"She seems a weel-doing lass, wi' no feery-faries aboot her!" declared
my aunt, speaking of Amelia Craven. While that young woman, delivering
her mind after the departure of Miss Janet Lyon, declared that she was a
"wiselike woman and very civil--but I'll wager she came here thinking
that I was wanting ye. Faith, no, I wadna marry any student that ever
stepped in leather--_I ken ower muckle aboot them_!"

"There's Freddie!" I suggested.

"Oh," said Amelia shortly, "he's different, I allow. But then, there's a
medium. One doesna want a man with his nose aye in a book. But one that,
when ye spit at him, will spit back!"

"Try me!" I said, daring her in conscious security.

"Goliah of Gath," cried she, "but I wad be sair left to mysel'!"

We continued, however, to be pretty good friends always, and in a
general way she knew about Irma. She had seen the oval miniature lying
on the table. She had also closely interrogated Freddy, and lastly she
had charged me with the fact, which I did not deny.

Freddy was now assistant to the professor of Humanity, which is to say
of the Latin language, while besides my literary work on the _Universal
Review_ I was interim additional Under-secretary to the University
Court. In both which positions, literary and secretarial, I did the work
for which another man pocketed the pay.

But after all I was not ill-off. One way and another I was making near
on to a hundred pounds a year, which was a great deal for the country
and time, and more than most ministers got in country parts. I wrote a
great many very learned articles, though I signed none. I even directed
foreign affairs in the _Review_, and wrote the most damaging indictments
against "the traditional policy of the house of Austria."