“This lad! wha does the auld tricky body mean?” said Miss Jean, fixing her sharp eyes curiously on Uncle Sandy, “five pounds in the hunder--ye’re meaning he’ll gie me that by the year, and keep a’ my siller where I never can lay hand on’t again, Sandy Muir?” “At no hand,” said the old man, with dignity, “the best of landed security, and the siller aye at your call, and the interest punctual to a day.” Miss Jean’s mouth watered and her fingers itched; it was impossible to think of this treasure without yearning to clutch it. “Ane might put by thretty pounds in the year,” she said, musingly. “And how do you ca’ this lad when ye name him, Sandy Muir?” “I’ve seen his name in the papers,” said the old man, with mingled exultation and anxiety, “and there it stands, ‘Harry Muir Allenders, Esq., of Allenders,’ but at hame here we call him your nephew and mine, Harry Muir.” Miss Jean uttered a passionate cry, rose from her seat, and flung the stocking with all her feeble might in the face of her visitor. “Eh, Sandy Muir, ye auld, leein, artful, designing villain! was’t no enough that ye came ance already wi’ you lang-tongued writer and reived my house of guid papers that were worth siller, but ye would come again, ye smooth-spoken, white-headed hypocrite, to seize my very substance away from me, and take bread out of a lone woman’s mouth to make a great man of a graceless prodigal. Ye auld sinner! ye hard-hearted theiving spoiler, that I should say so! how dare ye come to break a puir auld woman’s heart, and tantalize the frail life out of me, wi’ your lees and deceits about siller? Oh, Sandy Muir!” And Miss Jean threw herself down once more in her hard chair, and began to wipe the corners of her eyes; for the disappointment of her ruined expectations was really as hard upon her miserable soul as the failing of fortune or fame is at any time to its eager pursuer, who has just lifted his hand to grasp what Fate remorselessly snatches away. “Ye’ll come to yoursel, Miss Jean--ye’ll come to yoursel,” said Uncle Sandy quietly, as he laid the stocking on the table. And after another burst of fierce invective, Miss Jean did come to herself. “And he had to send _you_--he couldna get a decent writer to take up such an errand for him! but I’ll see him come to want, as a waster should, and he need ask nae charity from me!” “Nor never will,” said the much-enduring Uncle Sandy; “and Mr. Macer, whom ye ken weel, Miss Jean, for the first writer in this haill town, is instructed on the subject. Maybe, that may satisfy ye, if ye dinna believe me; but it might be best when he comes to see ye, no to throw your wires at _him_.”