Thus announced, Mr. Gilchrist entered the room. He was a massy large man, with grizzled hair, which had been reddish in his younger days, and kindly grey eyes gleaming out from under shaggy eyebrows. His linen was spotless; but his dress, though quite appropriate and respectable, was not very trim; little layers of snuff encumbered the folds of his black waistcoat; and from a steel chain of many complicated links, attached to the large round silver watch in his fob, hung two massy gold seals, one of them engraven with an emphatic “J. G.” of his own, the other an inheritance from his father. There was no mistaking the character and standing of this good and honourable man; his father before him had been head clerk in an extensive mercantile house in Glasgow; his sons after him might be that, or greater than that. With his two hundred pounds a-year, he was bringing up such a family as should hereafter do honour and service to their country and community; and for himself, no better citizen did his endeavour for the prosperity of the town, or prayed with a warmer heart, “Let Glasgow flourish.” “Harry, my man,” said Mr. Gilchrist, as he held Harry’s hand in his own, and shook it slowly, “I am very sorry about this.” “Well, it cannot be helped,” said Harry with a little assumed carelessness, “we must make the best we can of it now.” “Ay, no doubt,” said the Cashier, as he turned to shake hands with Rose and Martha, “to sit down and brood over a misfortune, is not the way to mend it; but it may not be so bad as you think. Angry folk will cool down, Harry, if ye leave them to themselves a little.” Harry’s heart began to beat high with anxiety--and Rose cast furtive glances at Mr. Gilchrist, as she went on nervously with her work, almost resenting Martha’s calmness. But Agnes had entered just then from the inner room, and the kindly greeting, which the visitor gave her, occupied another moment, during which the excitable Harry sat on thorns, and little Violet, holding the last cup which she had washed in her hands, polished it round and round with her towel, turning solemn wide open eyes all the time upon this messenger of fate. “I have a letter from Mr. Buchanan,” said Mr. Gilchrist, drawing slowly from his pocket a note written on the blue office paper. Harry took it with eager fingers. Agnes came to the back of his chair, and looked over his shoulder. Rose, trying to be very quiet, bent her head over her work with a visible tremor, and Martha suffered the piece of muslin she had been working at, to fall on her knee, and looked with grave anxiety at Harry.