supreme sort of revelation his sudden view of the woman whom he could never forget, who might have made of his life a something glorious and noble, altogether different from its natural commonplace. It was profane, but he could not help it: only the highest images could express what he meant. That mere glimpse of her, attended by so little self-disclosure on her part, almost without the communication of words, had it not already made such an impression on his soul as could never wear out? It had revealed another world to him, it had shown him what life might be, what it never could be, and with what a strange, lamentable misconception he had chosen the lower place! He was still in this uncertain condition, walking to the window now and then, looking out vaguely, pacing about the room, pausing to look at himself in the dingy mirror on the mantelpiece, taking up his hat and putting it down again, not able to decide what he should do, when his attention was caught by the sound of steps coming up the stairs, and the voice of Janet directing some one to come "This way, sir, this way." "Our young gentleman took a walk yestreen, ower long, and lost his way, so he's no out this morning, which is just very lucky," Janet was saying. Lewis threw down his hat with an impatient exclamation. It was Stormont, no doubt, he who could do what he pleased, who had taken his own way and satisfied himself, though not as Lewis would have done: or perhaps the minister who had laughed and spoken of the queen of beauty and love as a "poor little thing." There sprang up in his mind immediately a sort of hatred of them both as thus problematically preventing him from seeing her again: for he no sooner felt that he could not do it than it seemed to him he had made up his mind to do it, and was in the very act of sallying forth. But it was neither Stormont nor the minister who was shown in by Janet. She opened the door, and put her head in first with a certain caution. "This'll be yon gentleman," she said, and made a sort of interrogative pause, as much as to say no one should enter did Lewis disapprove. Then she opened the door wider, and added, "A gentleman to see you, Mr. Murray," in a louder voice. To say that Janet paused after this for a moment to satisfy herself what sort of greeting passed between them, and whether or not she had done well to introduce the stranger, is scarcely necessary. She stood with the door in her hand, and the most sympathetic curiosity in her mind: but when she saw the newcomer hurry forward with a sort of chuckling laugh, holding out his hand and exclaiming, in familiar accents, "So this is you! It was just borne in upon me that it must be you," Janet withdrew well pleased. "It's a' just as it should be," she said to Adam, who had lingered to see the result. "I'll no say our young lad is pleased: but it's a friend, it's no a spy nor a sheriff's officer."