“Puir lad. What's the trouble?” (solemnly and tenderly.) “Ennui!” (rather piteously.) “Yawn-we? I never heerd tell o't.” “Oh, you lucky girl,” burst out he; “but the doctor has undertaken to cure me; in one thing you could assist me, if I am not presuming too far on our short acquaintance. I am to relieve one poor distressed person every day, but I mustn't do two. Is not that a bore?” “Gie's your hand, gie's your hand. I'm vexed for ca'ing you daft. Hech! what a saft hand ye hae. Jean, I'm saying, come here, feel this.” Jean, who had run in, took the viscount's hand from Christie. “It never wroucht any,” explained Jean. “And he has bonny hair,” said Christie, just touching his locks on the other side. “He's a bonny lad,” said Jean, inspecting him scientifically, and pointblank. “Ay, is he,” said the other. “Aweel, there's Jess Rutherford, a widdy, wi' four bairns, ye meicht do waur than ware your siller on her.” “Five pounds to begin?” inquired his lordship. “Five pund! Are ye made o' siller? Ten schell'n!” Saunders was rung for, and produced a one-pound note. “The herrin' is five and saxpence; it's four and saxpence I'm awin ye,” said the young fishwife, “and Jess will be a glad woman the neicht.” The settlement was effected, and away went the two friends, saying: “Good-boye, vile count.” Their host fell into thought. “When have I talked so much?” asked he of himself. “Dr. Aberford, you are a wonderful man; I like your lower classes amazingly.” “Me'fiez vous, Monsieur Ipsden!” should some mentor have said. As the Devil puts into a beginner's hands ace, queen, five trumps, to give him a taste for whist, so these lower classes have perhaps put forward one of their best cards to lead you into a false estimate of the strength of their hand. Instead, however, of this, who should return, to disturb the equilibrium of truth, but this Christina Johnstone? She came thoughtfully in, and said: “I've been taking a thoucht, and this is no what yon gude physeecian meaned; ye are no to fling your chaerity like a bane till a doeg; ye'll gang yoursel to Jess Rutherford; Flucker Johnstone, that's my brother, will convoy ye.” “But how is your brother to know me?” “How? Because I'll gie him a sair sair hiding, if he lets ye gang by.” Then she returned the one-pound note, a fresh settlement was effected, and she left him. At the door she said: “And I am muckle obleeged to ye for your story and your goodness.” While uttering these words, she half kissed her hand to him, with a lofty and disengaged gesture, such as one might expect from a queen, if queens did not wear stays; and was gone. When his lordship, a few minutes after, sauntered out for a stroll, the first object he beheld was an exact human square, a handsome boy, with a body swelled out apparently to the size of a man's, with blue flannel, and blue cloth above it, leaning against a wall, with his hands in his pockets--a statuette of _insouciance._