And when he paused, trembling with earnest indignant fervour, the old man’s eye fell upon Miss Jean. She had risen to take down from the high dusty mantel-piece a coarse blue woollen stocking which she had been knitting. Now she resumed her seat, and began with perfect composure to take up some loops which her unsteady fingers had drawn out as she took down the stocking. Either she had not listened to Uncle Sandy’s fervent blessing, or was not disposed to except at it--certainly she settled down in her chair with feeble deliberation, pulling about her thin cushions peevishly, and with no sign or token about her of emotion of any kind. Her very eye had dulled and lost its fire, and you saw only a very old miserable solitary woman, and not an evil spirit incarnate of covetousness and malice, as she had looked a few minutes before. There was a considerable pause, for the old man did not find it so easy to overcome the tremor of indignation and horror into which her words had thrown him, and he now had almost resolved--but for a lingering unwillingness to disappoint Harry--to say nothing of his special mission. At last the silence was broken by Miss Jean herself. “Ill times, Sandy Muir, awfu’ ill times; for auld folk, such like as me that have just their pickle siller and naething mair, nae land to bear fruit nor strong arm to work for them, Sandy; the like of such times as thir, are as bad as the dear years.” Poor, forlorn, worn-out life! unconsciously to herself, the old man’s blessing on the young, whose strength she grudged and envied, had touched a gentle chord in her withered heart. Nothing knew she of what softened her, but for the moment she was softened. “Are ye getting little interest for your siller, Miss Jean?” said Uncle Sandy, immediately roused. “Little! ye might say naething ava, and no be far wrang,” answered Miss Jean, briskly. “A puir dirty three pund, or twa pund ten, for a guid hunder. Ye’ll be getting mair for your twa, Sandy Muir, or ye wadna look sae innocent! Where is’t, man? and ye’re an auld sleekit sneckdrawer, after a’, and ken how to tak care o’ yoursel.” “I ken ane, Miss Jean, would gie ye five pounds for every hundred, and mony thanks into the bargain,” said the old man, his breath coming short and his face flushing all over with anxious haste; “and a decent lad and landed security. I might have told you sooner, if I had kent; but, you see, I never thought it would answer you.” “Answer _me_! I find guid siller answer me better than maist things that folk put their trust in,” said Miss Jean, laying down her stocking, and lifting up the frosty cold blue eyes, which again twinkled and glimmered with eagerness, to the old man’s face. “Ye ken ane; and does he gie _you_ this muckle for your twa hunder pounds?” “Na, my twa hundred is out of my ain power, in the Ayr bank; besides, its mair siller this lad wants--mine would do him nae service.”