Kirsteen had known vaguely that her sister was supposed to be in Glasgow, which was something like an aggravation of her offence: for to live among what Miss Eelen called the fremd in a large town was the sort of unprincipled preference of evil to good which was to be expected from a girl who had married beneath her; but to find herself confronted with Anne was a contingency which had never occurred to her. At home she had thought of her sister with a certain awe mingled with pity. There was something in the banishment, the severance, the complete effacing of her name and image from all the family records, which was very impressive to the imagination, and brought an ache of compassion into the thought of her, which nobody ventured to express. Kirsteen had been very young, too young to offer any judgment independent of her elders upon Anne’s case, when she had gone away. But she had cried over her sister’s fate often, and wondered in her heart whether they would ever meet, or any amnesty ever be pronounced that would restore poor Anne, at least nominally, to her place in the family. But it had not entered into her mind to suppose that she herself should ever be called upon to decide that question, to say practically, so far as her authority went, whether Anne was to be received or not. She kept gazing at her hostess with a kind of dismay, unable to make any reply. Anne--who had married a man who was not a gentleman, who had run away, leaving the candle dying in the socket. A strong feeling against that family traitor rose up in Kirsteen’s breast. She had compromised them all. She had connected the name of the old Douglases, the name of the boys in India, with a name that was no name, that of a common person--a doctor, one that traded upon his education and his skill. There was a short but sharp struggle in her heart. She had run away herself, but it was for a very different reason. All her prejudices, which were strong, and the traditions of her life were against Anne. It was with an effort that she recovered the feeling of sympathy which had been her natural sentiment. “She is my near relation too. But she disobeyed them that she ought to have obeyed.” “Oh, missie, there are ower many of us who do that.” Kirsteen raised her head more proudly than ever. She gave the old woman a keen look of scrutiny. Did she know what she was saying? Anyhow, what did it matter? “But if we do it, we do it for different reasons--not to be happy, as they call it, in a shameful way.” “Oh, shameful--na, na! It’s a lawful and honest marriage, and he’s a leal and a true man.” “It was shameful to her family,” cried Kirsteen doubly determined. “It was forgetting all that was most cherished. I may be sorry for her--” she scarcely was so in the vigour of her opposition--“but I cannot approve her.” Kirsteen held her head very high and her mouth closed as if it had been made of iron. She looked no gentle sister but an unyielding judge.