I don't know Joe very well. Since he came home I have had few opportunities of meeting him and analysing him; but when Betty was talking he was very vividly flung on the screen, so to speak, and a possible trait in his character occurred to me. 'Betty,' I said, 'don't you think that Joe has just worked up his ghost story and feigned excitement and agitation, knowing you had spirits in the house, and that in the peculiar circumstances you would produce the bottle?' 'No, no, I dinna think that. Joe's a Hebron, as I've said, an' the Hebrons ha'e neither the cleverness to think a thing like that oot nor the guile to carry it through. No, no, Maister Weelum; Joe met the leddy, whaever she may be, richt enough. I'm quite sure aboot that pairt o't; but of coorse he's wrang aboot the burial. It's been some yin very like her, an' Joe's juist mistaken. Had this happened when he was as I ha'e seen him I wad never ha'e gi'en it a thocht; but this mornin'--weel, the man was--was ower sober to be healthy.' 'As you say, he's just made a mistake, Betty. At best, Joe's a mysterious individual; these annual disappearances are remarkable. Have you yet learned exactly where he goes?' Her alert ear detected a cessation of brushing and whistling, and she walked quietly to the door, keeked past it, and then gently turned the handle. 'He has finished your buits,' she said, 'an' he's gettin' Nathan's Sabbath-day yins doon frae the shelf to gi'e them a rub. Do I ken where he gangs? Ay, I do. For a lang time I jaloused; but last nicht he telt me a' aboot it, an', as it turns oot, I havena been very far frae the mark. His wife has a wee temperance hotel--a temperance yin--she kens Joe!--in a toon ca'd Brighton. She can manage a' richt hersel' in the dull pairt o' the year, but she's forced to get Joe in the busy time to gi'e her a haun wi' the fires an' the luggage an' siclike. She was only aince here, an' we didna see much o' her; but frae the little I did see I wad tak' her to be a fell purposefu' woman, mair cut oot for fechtin' in a toon than settlin' doon to the quiet, humdrum life o' Thornhill. Joe in the airmy wad dootless be a' richt, but oot o't an' hangin' aboot here wi' a decent pension he wad juist be an impossibility. I was kind o' sorry for her when she was here. She had never been in this pairt before, an' she didna tak' very kindly to it. She couldna understaun what we said, an' we were in the same fix when she spoke. The first nicht she was in this hoose Nathan, for Joe's sake, tried to ca' the crack wi' her; but it gied him a sair heid, so he juist smiled an' noddit to her efter that. She put twae months in here, an' then she went away on her ain. First she kept lodgers; then she took this wee hotel, an' by a' accoonts she's doin' weel. But it's a queer, queer life for baith o' them. Never a letter passes between them, an' Joe seldom mentions her name. When he cam' back this time I asked him if