The good man rose to go away. “By-the-bye,” he added as he shook hands with Rose--and Rose felt herself look guilty under his smiling glance. “I saw a friend of yours coming off the Ayr coach as I came up--the advocate lad, Mr. Buchanan’s nephew. You are sure of his good word, Harry, or else I am much mistaken.” “Mr. Charteris!--he has come back very soon. Good night Mr. Gilchrist, I will think about it,” said Harry, as he went to the door with his sister. Mr. Gilchrist left some excitement behind him. Agnes had risen into tremulous high spirits. Rose was touched with some tremor of anticipation, and Martha, watchful and jealous, looked at her sister now and then with scrutinising looks; for Mr. Gilchrist’s last words had awakened Martha’s fears for another of her children; while in the meantime little Violet had polished all the cups and saucers, and was now putting them with much care away. “Harry will go--do you not think he must go, Martha?” said Agnes. “Mr. Gilchrist says they miss him in the office. I don’t wonder at that. He will go back again, Martha?” “I think he should--I think he will,” said Martha with a slight sigh. “There might have been something better in a change--one has always fantastic foolish hopes from a change--but I believe this is best.” Agnes was a little damped; for she saw nothing but the highest good fortune in this unlooked-for overture of Mr. Buchanan. Harry lingered at the outer door in a very different mood. He, too, had been indulging in some indefinite hope from change. He could not see that the former evils lay in himself--poor Harry! He thought if the circumstances were altered, that happier results might follow--and while he was not unwilling to return to his former situation, and had even a certain pleasure in the thought that it was open to him, the submission which it would be necessary to make, galled him beyond measure. He stood there at the door, moody and uneasy; not weighing his own feelings against the well-being of the family, certainly, for Harry was not given to any such process of deliberation--but conscious that the two were antagonistic, and moodily letting his own painful share in the matter bulk largest in his mind. Just then a hackney coach drew up at a little distance from the door, and Cuthbert Charteris leaped out. He was a good deal heated, as Harry thought, and looked as if he had taken little time to rest, or put his dress in order since he finished his journey--but he carried nothing except a little paper parcel. He came up at once to Harry and shook hands with him cordially--they went upstairs together. “I have just come from Ayr,” said Cuthbert with some embarrassment, as he took his old place at the window--“you must pardon my traveller’s costume, Mrs. Muir, for it is not half an hour since I arrived.” “You have had little time to see the town,” said Harry. “Did you find my uncle? Has he sent any message with you, Mr. Charteris?”