“I hope you will learn to correct these faults which I have pointed out to you, and we will always be glad to see you here, in spite of what has passed. I trust I can forgive an injury, especially when it has been made an instrument of good; and if you hear of any changes in my family, I hope you will be able to think of them without any great disappointment, seeing that I always remain, with compassion upon the errors of your youth, “Your sincere friend, “MATTHEW MONIKIE.” * * * * * Halbert was very red, very angry; he folded up the letter bitterly, and felt indignant at treatment so unjust. His first flash of jealous resolution was to start for Aberdeenshire immediately, and carry off the faithless Menie from his supplanter the Laird of Blackdean. The merry, pretty Menie! He had been getting rather indifferent, there was no denying that; but now when he had lost her, tender recollections of his first love returned to the honest heart of Halbert. Something swelled in his breast of that sad disappointment with which youthful people see the first tie of their own forming rudely snapt asunder. One or two tears rose into his eyes; the petulant, fickle Menie was victor over him. But Halbert was not long melancholy. He began to think of the injustice--the insult. “It is very well for herself; she has only taken the first word of flyting; she was wise,” muttered the angry Halbert, as he turned on his heel, and with a quick, impatient step went on to Mossgray; and so he salved his wounded pride and consoled himself, not without a pleasurable consciousness, increasing as he grew familiar with the idea, that he was free. Lucy Murray and Adam Graeme had borne the first epidemic grief of youth on that Waterside before him. This last example perfected the story of the others. The woman’s sad endurance--the man’s passionate pain--these were not types broad enough for universal humanity. Only a few here and there can feel as they did, but Halbert’s lighter emotions were of the common stock; the momentary melancholy--the sting of mortification--the buoyance of new life and freedom. Lightly the cloud passed over the head of Halbert, a thing to be laughed at by and by; for he had no ideal to be sacrificed. And so he completed the tale of youthful disappointments; he brought them into the ordinary level, the common stream of life. In the kitchen of Mossgray Robbie Caryl the fisherman stood in grave and earnest conversation with the old housekeeper and her niece. Neither cuddie nor creels were visible to-day, and Robbie himself wore his Sabbath-day’s well-preserved suit, and his Sabbath-day’s look of gravity. “Eh, Robbie!” exclaimed Mrs Mense, “it’s a judgment--it’s just a visible judgment and retribution on that hard auld man! As if we werena sinfu’ enough oursels to learn us mercy to our neighbours, let alane our ain bairns, bane of our bane, and flesh of our flesh.”