'This is Miss Stuart,' she said, 'the lady that's pentin' wee Isobel Jardine's picter. She's been workin' at it a' efternoon. I was tellin' her aboot your new yin, an' I asked her in to see it.--An', Miss Stuart, this is my boy--my wean I used to ca' him--Maister Weelum, or raither, as I should say, Maister Russell. Mrs Jardine an' me were tellin' ye aboot him. Imphm!' And as Betty breathlessly finished her introduction, and, without further ado, turned to break the fire into a glow, Miss Stuart and I gravely bowed. I couldn't see our visitor's face, but her figure was strangely familiar to me, and my pulse quickened. 'Miss Stuart,' said Betty, 'will ye please sit here till I licht the gas?' and she wheeled the easy-chair, which usually stands opposite mine, within the radius of the glow from the fire. 'Oh, thank you very much, Mrs Hebron,' said a voice I knew well; 'but I'm afraid I must be going. I'll--I'll not sit down, thank you. Mr Russell will be'---- 'Delighted to see you seated, Miss Stuart,' I interposed. 'I have very few lady visitors these days, and I do assure you you are welcome.' 'Eh! that's weel said, Maister Weelum,' Betty chimed in; 'and it's true too.--Ye canna but sit doon, if it's only to please him, no' to speak o' me;' and, as Miss Stuart graciously complied, she bustled out to the kitchen for a match. In her absence I struck a light and lit the gas, and as Miss Stuart's eyes met mine we both smiled. Nathan on one occasion winked to me, and in doing so he established a paction between us. In the same way, but more emphatically, this smile awakened a feeling of camaraderie, a consciousness that the Fates were playing with us, and that we recognised the success of their manipulations. 'Betty has been talking to me a good deal about you lately, Miss Stuart,' I said as I drew in my chair. 'Somehow, from the first I associated you, the subject of her talk and the painter of Isobel's portrait, with my good Samaritan of Nithbank Wood; and I am not surprised to find that I was right.' 'Indeed, Mr Russell!' she said, and again she smiled. 'Well, I have been hearing about you also of late from both Mrs Hebron and Mrs Jardine; and, like you, I am'----But before she could finish her sentence Betty re-entered with a lighted taper, and in its warm yellow glow her face shone like a radiant moon. 'Ah, Maister Weelum,' she said, 'for aince ye've managed that "perverted" licht. Thae newfangled things are fashious, an' it's a cauld-lookin' licht; but there's economy in it, Miss Stuart--imphm! An', my me! excuse me, miss, but it does my he'rt guid to see ye sittin' in that chair.' And in a flash my mind went back to our crack, and I remembered her words, 'It's a gey comfortable-lookin' chair, that yin opposite ye, Maister Weelum; an', d'ye ken, I met a leddy the day that I wad like to see sittin' in it.'