I thought for a moment, and Betty watched me keenly. 'Am I to understand, Betty, that you are willing to step into the breach and give Tom Jardine one hundred and fifty pounds--your all?' 'Yes--if ye think it wad be your mother's will.' 'Betty, if Nathan won't object, will you please put your arms round my neck and give me a kiss?' I said, and I raised my head from my pillow. * * * * * The wind has died down, and through the lown midnight air I heard the Auld Kirk clock strike the hour of twelve. Tom Jardine has just left my room. He has been with me for almost three hours, and we have had a long smoke together and a grand talk over the times and folks of auld langsyne. Betty, as an interested party, favoured us with her company part of the time, for Nathan was sleeping the sleep of the just and the tired, and the kitchen fire had long gone out. She was surprised to know that Tom's difficulties could be overcome and his affairs straightened out without her little legacy and her hard-earned savings being requisitioned. Only Tom and I know how this was arranged, and as it is a little matter of personal interest to us, and us alone, the details of the transaction will remain untold. I am having a run of strange coincidences just now. When Betty was locking the door after Tom's departure I lifted my book to mark the page where I had left off on Nathan's coming into my room, and the paragraph opposite my thumb is as follows: 'I will pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any good thing I can do, or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not neglect it or defer it, for I shall never pass this way again.' I shall read this to Betty to-morrow morning, and tell her that, though she may not have the faculty of thus beautifully and poetically expressing a sentiment, she lives it to the letter every day of her life. CHAPTER VIII. To-day, when Betty was tidying my room, I took the opportunity of referring to Nathan's conversation of the previous evening, particularly that portion of it in which he advised me to take up my quarters downstairs. From the insinuating way in which he had introduced the subject, and the allusions he had made to my 'no weel' look, I naturally concluded that his advice might be interpreted as a hint to me that I was not so well as I fondly imagined; and that, for my own good, and for the convenience of my faithful old nurse--not to speak of obviating the necessity of taking a six-foot coffin down a narrow staircase with a sharp turn--I ought to agree to his proposal at once and without demur.