“Dragon, he’s my Harry!” cried little Violet in a sudden passion, stamping her foot again violently on the stones, while the tears fell down her cheeks, and quivering lip and dilating nostril bore witness to the force of her feelings. “He’s our Harry--he’s my Harry, Dragon! and I wish God would take me--oh, I wish God would put me in a grave, my lane, and kill me, if He would keep Harry well!” And the tears poured down over Violet’s cheeks, and she dashed her hand into the air, and cried aloud. “Poor little Lettie! many an elder, many a wiser, never a more loving heart, has lost itself in such another agony, chafing against that inscrutable providential will, which we call fate.” Katie Calder looked on with wonder and dismay. Honest little Katie could not comprehend what this strange emotion was; but with _her_ natural instinct she made instant endeavours to “divert” her little friend. And Dragon looked at Violet with his wandering light blue eyes, like a man half-awakened from a dream; but as the child’s highly-wrought feelings subsided, and she sat down on the steps and wept, he fell back into his old torpor. You could almost have thought that this strange voice of passion in the child had rung back through the waste of years, and lighted upon the man’s heart which lay sleeping in Edom Comrie’s breast. “Eh, Lettie, Willie Paterson’s broken his leg,” said Katie Calder. “It was on the big slide between Mrs. Cogan’s and Maidlin, and a’ the boys play at his mother’s window now, to let him hear them when he’s lying in his bed. It was little Johnnie Paxton that told me, Dragon, when he came to the kitchen to see Mysie.” “Willie Paterson’s a fine laddie of himsel,” said Dragon, “and has a great notion of you, Missie; but mind, he’s only a puir widow’s son, and besides, he’s gotten in among some muckle ill callants, and they’re leading him away.” “Dragon,” said Lettie gravely, “when folk are led away, are they no doing ill themselves? Is it a’ the blame of the one that leads them away, and no their ain, Dragon?” “Weeld, I’ll just tell ye a story, Missie,” said the old man. “When I was a young lad, I had ance a brother, and he was easy beguiled. So a sodger out of the town got him, and courted at him, and garred him drink, and led him into every kind of evil, till the poor callant lost his employ, and listed, and ga’ed away across the sea to the war. By a’ accounts he was little steadier when he was away, than he had been at hame, though he had a guid heart for a’ that, and was aye kind to his friends; and at the end of the war he came back just as simple as ever he was, with a sma’ pension, and as many wounds as might have served a regiment. He wasna weel hame, when up turned this deevil of a sodger again--where the tane was, ye were sure to find the tither--and within a year, George Comrie was dead and buried. Now ye’ve baith guid judgments to be bairns--wha was’t that should bear the blame?”