He lit his pipe with a paper spill, and stood for a minute blowing clouds of smoke round the old china dog on my mantelpiece. Then he resumed his seat at the foot of my bed; and, inclining his head sideways toward the window, he said, 'The last good-bye I said to your aunt Margaret was spoken amidst falling snow, and it is strange that I should be speaking of her to you for the first time with these flimsy flakes dimming your window-pane. There's not much to tell you, William; and, to be candid with you, when I was standing smoking at your fireplace there the thought came to me that, as your mother had never deemed it expedient or necessary to mention my name to you, it would be more in agreement with her will that I should be silent. However, as I have started, I may as well proceed; but I shall be brief, as I haven't the heart to go into what must ever be sacred details. I first met your aunt Margaret in Edinburgh, when I was at the University. Her father--your grandfather, Colonel Kennedy--had returned from India, where he had served with distinction, and had, with his wife and two daughters, taken up residence in the suburb of Murrayfield. Being of a Dumfriesshire family, and well known to my father, who was a merchant in Dumfries and Provost of that town, Colonel Kennedy, on the strength of my father's letter of introduction, gave me a hearty welcome to his domestic circle, a welcome of which I may say I took ample advantage. Your father and mother got married shortly after I became acquainted with the family; and as your aunt Margaret was thus deprived of a sister and companion to whom she was ardently attached, I gladly embraced every opportunity of showing her little kindly attentions, acting the part of a thoughtful brother, and generally doing my utmost to minimise the loss which I was sure she had sustained. Well, William, this ended in the usual way. Sympathy begets love, and I fell hopelessly in love with Margaret Kennedy. How I found out that my love was returned is a secret which is a joy to me, too holy to share even with you, William. Ah me! the happiness of those halcyon days--the quiet afternoons in that old drawing-room facing southward to the distant Pentlands, the evening walks on Corstorphine Hill when the sunset rays still lingered above Ben Lomond, the talks we had of the future we had planned! Tennyson says that "sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." That may be poetic, but I don't think it is true, for it is a crown of joy to me to call these times to mind, and I feel that to have had this experience, and to have garnered such memories, I have surely not lived in vain. Our love, as is the case with all young people, was unreasoning. We gave no thought to ways and means, and position or status we never for a moment considered. But your grandfather brought us to earth and faced us with realities. In response to a written request, I waited on him one evening, and in a very few words he gave me to