"I thocht as muckle. Is the rainbow beginnin' to cast (fade) a wee? Has the fit o' Iris ca'd a hole i' the airch o' 't? Eh, man! man! Tak' to the mathemawtics and the anawtomy, and fling the conic sections an' the banes i' the face o' the bonny jaud--Iris, I mean, man, no ither, lass or leddy." For Mr Cupples had feared, from the expression of Alec's face, that he had given him offence in return. A silence of a few seconds followed, which Alec gladly broke. "Are you still acting as librarian, Mr Cupples?" he said. "Ay. I'm actin' _as_ librarian," returned Cupples dryly. "And I'm thinkin'," he added, "that the buiks are beginnin' to ken by this time what they're aboot; for sic a throuither disjaskit midden o' lere, I never saw. Ye micht hae taicklet it wi' a graip" (_a three-pronged fork_, a sort of agricultural trident). "Are ye gaun to tak' the cheemistry alang wi' the naiteral philoasophy?" "Ay." "Weel, ye jist come to me, as ye hae done afore. I'm no sae gude at thae things as I am at the Greek; but I ken mair already nor ye'll ken whan ye ken a' 'at ye will ken. And that's nae flattery either to you or me, man." With beating heart, Alec knocked the next day at Mr Fraser's door, and was shown into the drawing-room, where sat Kate alone. The moment he saw her, he knew that there was a gulf between them as wide as the Glamour in a spate. She received him kindly, nor was there anything in her manner or speech by which he could define an alteration; and yet, with that marvellous power of self-defence, that instinctive knowledge of spirituo-military engineering with which maidens are gifted, she had set up such a palisade between them, dug such a fosse, and raised such a rampart, that without knowing how the effect was produced, he felt that he could not approach her. It is strange how women can put out an invisible arm and push one off to an infinite removal. With a miserable sense of cold exhaustion and aching disappointment, he left her. She shook hands with him warmly, was very sorry her uncle was out, and asked him whether he would not call again to-morrow, when he would certainly be at home? He thanked her in a voice that seemed to him not his own, while her voice appeared to him to come out of some far-off cave of the past. The cold frosty air received him as he stepped from the door, and its breath was friendly. If the winter would only freeze him to one of its icicles, and still that heart of his which would go on throbbing although there was no reason for it to throb any more! Yet had he not often found her different from what he had expected? And might not this be only one of her many changeful moods? Perhaps.