“Na! I'll no add to your vexation,” and she gulped down her tears. “Besides, I have pictures painted worth two hundred pounds; this is only for eighty. To be sure you can't sell them for two hundred pence when you want. So I shall go to jail, but they won't keep me long.” Then he took a turn, and began to fall into the artistic, or true view of matters, which, indeed, was never long absent from him. “Look here, Christie,” said he, “I am sick of conventional assassins, humbugging models, with dirty beards, that knit their brows, and try to look murder; they never murdered so much as a tom-cat. I always go in for the real thing, and here I shall find it.” “Dinna gang in there, lad, for ony favor.” “Then I shall find the accessories of a picture I have in my head--chains with genuine rust and ancient mouldering stones with the stains of time.” His eye brightened at the prospect. “You among fiefs, and chains, and stanes! Ye'll break my hairt, laddy, ye'll no be easy till you break my hairt.” And this time the tears would not be denied. “I love you for crying; don't cry;” and he fished from the chaotic drawer a cambric handkerchief, with which he dried her tears as they fell. It is my firm belief she cried nearly twice as much as she really wanted to; she contrived to make the grief hers, the sympathy his. Suddenly she stopped, and said: “I'm daft; ye'll accept a lane o' the siller fra me, will ye no?” “No!” said he. “And where could you find eighty pound?” “Auchty pund,” cried she, “it's no auchty pund that will ding Christie Johnstone, laddy. I hae boats and nets worth twa auchtys; and I hae forty pund laid by; and I hae seven hundred pund at London, but that I canna meddle. My feyther lent it the king or the queen, I dinna justly mind; she pays me the interest twice the year. Sac ye ken I could na be sae dirty as seek my siller, when she pays me th' interest. To the very day, ye ken. She's just the only one o' a' my debtors that's hoenest, but never heed, ye'll no gang to jail.” “I'll hold my tongue, and sacrifice my pictures,” thought Charles. “Cheer up!” said Christie, mistaking the nature of his thoughts, “for it did na come fra Victoree hersel'. It wad smell o' the musk, ye ken. Na, it's just a wheen blackguards at London that makes use o' her name to torment puir folk. Wad she pairsecute a puir lad? No likely.” She then asked questions, some of which were embarrassing. One thing he could never succeed in making her understand, how, since it was sixty pounds he borrowed, it could be eighty pounds he owed. Then once more she promised him her protection, bade him be of good cheer, and left him. At the door she turned, and said: “Chairles, here's an auld wife seeking ye,” and vanished. These two young people had fallen acquainted at a Newhaven wedding. Christie, belonging to no one, had danced with him all the night, they had walked under the stars to cool themselves, for dancing reels, with heart and soul, is not quadrilling.