There is a stranger in the garden, lingering beside the vacant chair on the threshold, looking wistfully into the shaded corner, with its waving boughs and pursuing sunshine. Just now they are talking rather loud yonder, and laughing with unrestrained glee; and still it is stories of courtship and mirthful wooing which are told to Rose, and still she stands listening, well pleased, with smiles on her face, and in her heart. Rose could not tell you what it is that makes her step so light, her heart so free. It is something which touches duller pleasures into life, and kindles them all with a touch of its passing wing. But it has passed in the night this angel, when she only felt its plumes, and heard its sweet unrecognised voice; and as yet she has not seen the face of this new affection, nor blushes as she lifts her own, frankly to all kindly eyes; yet with the greater zest she listens to these girlish romances, and smiles, and asks questions--questions which the blushing subject of the story does not always refuse to answer; but just now the narrator has become rather loud, and there is a burst of laughter which good Uncle Sandy would reprove from his window, if he were not more seriously engaged. Suddenly there falls a complete silence on the little group, broken only after the first moment by an indistinct tittering of confusion and bashfulness, as one by one they steal away, leaving Rose alone under the plane tree--and the stranger advances at a singular pace, which seems to be composed of two eager steps and one slow one, towards her, as she stands, half-reluctant, with her head drooped and the light stealing warmly over her cheek, waiting to receive him. As he advances the colour rises on his forehead. It may be because he is aware of some close scrutiny, but however that is, Cuthbert Charteris, who can pass with the utmost coolness through every corner of the Parliament House, and make his appearance before the Lords who rule her Majesty’s Court of Session without a vestige of shyness, grows very red and lets his glove fall, as he advances to this audience. And the sympathetic Rose blushes too, and hangs down her head, and gives her hand reluctantly, and wishes she were anywhere but here, seeing any other person than Mr. Charteris. Why? For after all, there is nothing formidable about the Edinburgh advocate, and he has been her brother’s friend. Martha’s hand again tightened on the old man’s arm; then it was slowly withdrawn, and she sat still, looking at them earnestly--looking at them in their fair youth, and with their fresh hopes round them, like a saint’s encircling glory--so great a contrast to herself. “Well, Martha, well,” said the old man, in a lighter tone, “well, my woman--no doubt neither you nor me have anything to do with the like of this; but it is good, like every ordinance of God. If Rosie, poor thing, gets a good man, she’ll do well; and we need not be vexed for that, Martha.”