old house the unknown qualities of some nameless race. And Marjory, with her head full of this nonsense, leaving him just at the moment he wanted her most, to mix herself up with such a business! And Fanshawe, an English ne’er-do-weel--Tom’s friend, no doubt, and not a bad fellow, but far from the sort of person to match with Marjory--brought into it, head and shoulders! No wonder Mr. Charles was put out. The statistical book, too, indulged in statements about Fife which made every drop of blood in his body boil separately; statements which he could not absolutely contradict, yet which he felt were untrue, and would not have believed had an angel from Heaven proclaimed them. He was reading something particularly offensive about the fishers of the East Neuk itself, and fuming over it, when the maid came to the door to say that some one outside was asking for Miss Heriot. “They’re awfu’ disappointed to hear she’s no in,” said the woman. “They have the look of decent folk, as if they had come a long way. Maybe you would see them, Sir, and no disappoint the poor bodies? Miss Heriot is aye awfu’ polite and ceevil to poor folk.” “Miss Heriot, I hope, is polite to everybody,” said Mr. Charles. “You may show them in if their business is urgent. But stop; if it’s only charity, or that sort of thing--” “Eh, no, Sir; they’re no folk to want charity,” said the woman, dismayed at the suggestion. And, half unwillingly, half pleased to get quit of himself and his loneliness, and the statistics, Mr. Charles closed his book, and prepared to receive the strangers. There was a little controversy at the door, as he could hear, as to which should enter first, which was quite audible. The woman would have yielded the _pas_ to her lord; but while her modesty was slightly artificial, that of the man was perfectly genuine in its unalloyed loutishness. “Gang you in, gang you in first; you’ve aye a word ready, right or wrong; and me, I canna speak,” the bass voice grumbled, as the little struggle ended in the most natural way, and the wife appeared at the door. This amused Mr. Charles to start with; and it was with benevolent kindness in his look, that he invited his visitors to approach. “Miss Heriot, my niece, is out. Come forward, come forward. You can tell me your business,” he said. The pair came in accordingly; a rustic pair, she advancing with bashful self-possession, he hanging behind in her shadow. They were middle-aged people; the man grizzled and ruddy, the woman a comely housewife, with a cheerful countenance which belied her timid gait. She advanced to within a few paces of the library table, at which Mr. Charles sat. “You see, Sir, we’ve come a long way. It’s no but what we would have waited for the leddy; but my man there was struck to hear it was a leddy, and thought maybe that in any case there would be mair comfort to his mind in seeing the maister--” “Na, Jean; na Jean,” said the man; “that was nane of my thought; it was your ain.”