e first
view of the Greyfriars Kirk that ever I had from that quarter. (It was
soon lost again behind new constructions, but for a time it was worth
seeing, with its ancient "through" stones, and the Martyrs' Monument
showing its bossy head over the low wall.)

So much taken up with this was I, that I did not notice the altered
aspect of the place. Yet I looked about me like one who is suddenly
confronted by something very familiar. There was the wide space. There
were the narrow streets I knew so well. Yonder was the Candlemaker Row
diving down into the bowels of the earth. Away towards the Greyfriars
were the tall "lands" which the masons were pulling down. Nearer were
men climbing up ladders with hods on their shoulders. Highest of all,
against the blue sky, naked as a new gibbet, stood out the framework of
a crane.

It was the very place of my dream. I knew it well enough, indeed, but
never until that day it had looked so. And there, coming smiling down
the midst, easily as one might down the aisle of an empty church, was
Irma herself, as plain and poor in habiliment as my dream, but
smiling--ah, with a smile that turned all my heart to water, so dear it
was. It was good of God to let us love each other like that--and be
poor.

And as she came nearer, she did not hold out her hand, nor greet me--but
when she was quite close she said, exactly as in the dream, "I have
found the Little House round the Corner!" Yet she had never heard of my
dream before.

That this is true, we do solemnly bear witness, each for our own parts,
thereof, and hereto append our names--

Duncan MacAlpine.
Irma MacAlpine.

* * * * *

Irma had found it, indeed, but as I judged at the first sight of the
house, it was bound to be too expensive for our purses. I immediately
decided that something must be wrong somewhere, when I heard that we
could have this pleasant cottage with its scrap of garden, long and
narrow certainly, but full of shade and song of birds, for the
inconsiderable rent of ten pounds a year. We thought of many dangers and
inconveniences, but Irma was infinitely relieved when it came out to be
only ghosts. Servants, it appeared, could not be got to stay.

"Is that all?" said Irma scornfully. "Well, then, I don't mean to keep
any servants, and as for ghosts, Louis and I have lived in a big house
in a wood full of them from cellar t