ite at once!"

I could only look at him in amazement.

"Why, Irma is very well," I said; "she never looked better in her life."

"My boy," said the Advocate, laying his hand gently on my arm, "I have
loved a wife, and I have lost a wife who loved me; I do not wish to
stand by and let you do the same for the want of a friend's word. Write
to-night!"

And he turned on his heel and marched off. At twenty steps' distance he
turned. "Duncan," he said, "we will need all your time at the _Review_;
you had better give up the Secretary's office. I have spoken to Morrison
about it. I shall be so much in London for a year or two that you will
be practically in charge. We will get a smart young colleger to take
your place."

That night I wrote to my Aunt Janet. It was after Irma, fatigued more
easily than was usual with her, had gone to bed. Four days afterwards, I
was looking over some manuscript sheets which that day had to go to the
printer. Mistress Pathrick, who had just arrived to prepare the
breakfast (I had lit the kitchen fire when I got up), burst in upon me
with the announcement that there was "sic a gathering o' folk" at the
door, and a "great muckle owld woman coming in!"

I hastened down, and there in the little lobby stood--my grandmother.
She was arrayed in her oldest black bombazine. A travel-crushed beaver
bonnet was clapped tightly on her head. The black velvet band about her
white hair had slipped down and now crossed her brow transversely a
little above one bushy eyebrow, giving an inconceivably rakish
appearance to her face. She held a small urchin, evidently from the
Grassmarket or the Cowgate, firmly by the cuff of his ragged jacket. She
was threatening him with her great blue umbrella.

"If ye hae led me astray, ye skirmishing blastie, I'll let ye ken the
weight o' this!"

The youth was guarding himself with one hand and declaring alternately
that, "This is the hoose, mem," and, "I want my saxpence!"

A little behind two sturdy porters, laden with a box apiece, blocked up
the doorway, and loomed large across the garden.

"Eh, Duncan, but this is an awesome place," cried my grandmother. "So
many folk, and it's pay this, and so much for that! It's a fair
disgrace. There's no man in Eden Valley that wadna hae been pleased to
gie me a lift from the coach wi' my bit boxes. But here, certes, it's
sae muckle for liftin' them up and sae muckle more for settin' them
doon, and to crown a' a saxpence to a