For a long minute Mistress McWalter lay petrified with astonishment. The like of this had not happened since six months after their marriage. But the checked tide of her speech was not long in overflowing the barrier like a bursting flood. "Is't come to this between you an' me, John McWalter—that I may rise and pack, and tak' awa me and my bairns, puir harmless bits o' things? For it comes to that! After a' my thirty years aboot the hoose o' Loch Spellanderie, that ye should tak' the pairt o' a reckless randy gang-the-road trollop, against your ain married wife! Have I watched and tended ye for this, when ye had the trouble in your inside, and could get rest neither day nor nicht, you wantin' aye mustard plaisters? Is it to be lichtlied for a lichtfit rantipole limmer that I hae fed ye and clad ye—aye, and tended your bairns, washing them back and front ilka Saturday nicht wi' a bit o' flannel and guid yellow soap, forby drying them after that wi' a rough towel? And noo, since I am to hae a besom like this preferred before me—I'll rise and be gaun. I'll bide nae mair aboot this hoose. Guid be thanked there's them in the warld that thinks mair o' me than John McWalter, my ain marriet man!" "Aye, juist na," said John McWalter, roused at last. "E'en gang your ways, Mistress, if ye can make a better o't. Ye're braw and welcome to trampit as far as this hoose is concerned. I'm thinkin' that your new freends will be brave and sune tired o' ye!" Mistress McWalter bounced out of bed and began hurriedly to gather her apparel, as though she meditated leaving the house just as she was. She would have given a considerable sum of money if at that moment she could have wept real wet tears. However, she did her best with a dry towel. "To think," sobbed she, bouncing from chair to chair, "that ye prefer a wandering gypsy's brat o' a hizzie to me! O what for did I ever leave my mither, and the bonny hoose o' Knockshin where I was so muckle thocht on? Waes me, for I am but a puir, heart-broken, deceivit woman!" At this very moment Vara came in bearing her cans, with a lightened heart after her journey to the well with Kit Kennedy. With a louder voice and more abounding thankfulness, Mistress McWalter took up the burden of her tale. "Aye, here comes your base limmer. Ye had better be awa doon to her, John McWalter," cried the Mistress of Loch Spellanderie, "or she may tak' the country again, after the thief-like loon wha cam' seekin' her on Monday nicht, nae farther gane." Then Mistress McWalter went down stairs and opened more direct fire. It was certainly a stormy day at Loch Spellanderie, little doubt was there of that. For the winds roared about the farm on the hill above the water. And within Mistress McWalter's tongue thundered like great guns in a naval engagement. Vara went about her work with the tear on her pale cheek all that day, and a wonder in her heart what she had done to deserve such cruelty. ADVENTURE LIV. KIT KENNEDY'S FAREWELL.