had jumped to perceive him. Poor little gentle soul! her large eyes made larger and softer still by her wistful anxiety and longing for his presence, had watched with patience unwavering for more than an hour. She had not minded the chill wind nor the weariness of standing so long, with no support but the doorway. The attitude, the strained look, the patience, were all characteristic of Jeanie. She was the kind of being which in all second-rate poetry, and most second-rate imaginations, is the one sole type of woman. Looking for some one who was the lord of her life, or looking to some one--with soft eyes intent, with quick ears waiting, with gentle heart ready to receive whatever impression he wished to convey, the soft soul turned to the man who had caught her heart or her imagination as the flower turns to the sun. To use the jargon of the day, poor little Jeanie was receptive to the highest degree. She never originated anything, nor advised anything, nor took any part as an individual being in the conduct of life, either her own or that of others. Hers were not those eager youthful opinions, those harsh judgments, those daring comments which belong as much to youth as its bloom. She was too artless to know anything of the prettiness of her uplifted eyes, or the delicious flattery which lay in her absolute submissiveness. Poor Jeanie did not know that these were charms much more potent than the talents which she was aware she did not possess. She listened, and looked, and watched for those signs of guidance, which she obeyed by instinct with the docility of a dumb creature, because it was her nature. She did not even intend to please; though she was happy beyond description when she found that she had pleased, she did but act as she could not help acting, according as her disposition moved her. Edgar, who had not been used to this kind of woman, had been half annoyed, half amused by her powerlessness to advise or help, her soft devotion of look, now addressed to himself, now to Mrs. Murray. He had wondered at it, and objected to it; yet he had been moved like any other man to a softening sense of protection and almost tenderness. He was flattered too in spite of himself to find her thus watching for him. It made him more than half angry, but yet it pleased him involuntarily. “You will catch cold standing out here in the night air,” he said pettishly at the first moment. Then he added with compunction, “It is kind of you to look for me, Jeanie; but you should not stand out in the cold without a shawl.” “I’m glad you’re come home,” said Jeanie, with instinctive policy ignoring this reproof. “Grannie is in her bed, and it is lonely without you. Will I make you some tea? or will you have your supper? You’ve been long away.”