We had afternoon tea and a pleasant chat on current topics, and then our carriage was called. Just before we started, when we were standing in the hall, Miss Stuart asked me, in an undertone, if she could see, just for a minute, the man who had known her father. I called Joe inside, and Miss Stuart took him into the drawing-room. When he joined us again there was a glad look in his eye, and I knew his heart was proud within him, for he had shaken hands with his old Major's daughter. I sat quiet and preoccupied in the corner of the brougham when driving home. Just as the first twinkling light shone out ahead from the Gillfoot turn, Monteith turned to me. 'Russell,' he said, 'pardon my interrupting the flow of your pleasant meditations. You're a queer fellow in many ways; you--you don't say much till it suits you; but I can see as far through a brick wall as any one, and it may be--I say it _may_ be--agreeable to you to know that Blackford Hall in Morningside will shortly be in the market. I've heard you say that if you ever settled down to married life you would like to live there.' 'Thank you, Monteith, for your information,' I said. 'It _is_ agreeable to me to know this.' Nothing further was said on the subject till we were seated at my cosy fireside. Then Murray Monteith, blowing clouds of fragrant smoke above him, and glancing round my clean, well-furnished walls, said, 'By Jove, Russell! you're a lucky fellow; an old doting nurse there,' inclining his head toward the kitchen, 'who loves you almost with a mother's affection, and who wouldn't allow the wind to blow on you if she could prevent it, and the love of a girl like--like'----and he hesitated and looked at me. 'Go on, Monteith; you're doing all right.' 'Go on! Hang it, man, _you_ go on! Can't you speak, you--you dungeon, and give me a tag on which to hang my congratulations?' 'You don't require a tag, Monteith. A gag would be more suitable in the circumstances.' 'Now, look here, Russell,' he said, as he flung his cigar-stump into the fire and fixed me through his monocle, 'you're not honest with me when you say that, and you know you are not. You and I are not strangers to each other, and there's no occasion for secrecy. If you have no matrimonial news, I have. I thought, perhaps, if you had taken me into your confidence, it would have been a good opportunity for me to acquaint you, in a gradual, chatty way, with my plans. As you haven't--well, all I shall say now is that I am engaged.' 'My dear Monteith, I'm delighted to hear you say so, and I heartily congratulate you. You're the very best fellow I know, and you're marrying a lady in every way worthy of you. Miss Playfair is a'---- 'Miss Playfair!' he exclaimed, in astonishment. 'How do you know?'