Jacky was hovering not far off with lights, and Anna lifted her little patient tenderly, put her dress in order, and led her down to the cheerful fireside of Mrs. Catherine's inner drawing-room, where Lewis joined her by-and-bye, and from the warm and hopeful air of which, glad lights went flashing back again over the fair horizon of Alice Aytoun's life. "Child," said Mrs. Catherine, as they parted, "I perceive it will be a hard work and a sore; but let me see you fainting, if you daur! Make no scruple to ask whatsoever aid is needful from me--ye ken that. You cannot see the truthfulness of it, child, as I do, that ken the lad. Be of good cheer, and never doubt that the Lord will bring light out of this great darkness in his own time." CHAPTER XIV. Within a week after these agitating events, Archibald Sutherland, in company with the anxious and attentive factor, rode into Portoran, to meet the third individual of their council, Mr. Foreman, and engage in a final consultation. During the days which had intervened since Archibald's return, there had already been much discussion and deliberation between the two good men, who took an interest so kindly in his changed fortunes. Mr. Ferguson, who had a distant kinsman, the most inaccessible and hypochondriacal of nabobs, and under whose ken had passed various bilious, overgrown fortunes accumulated in the golden East, gave his voice for India. Mr. Foreman, whose brother had grown comfortably rich, on the shores of that river "Plate," whose very name in mercantile mouths, seems to savor so pleasantly of golden harvests, spoke strongly in favor of South America. Mr. Foreman had been consulting with his minister, of whose business head, and clear judgment, the good lawyer was becomingly proud, and slightly given to boast himself; and it happened that, at that very time, Mr. Lumsden had heard from his brother, the clever manager and future junior partner of Messrs. Sutor and Sinclair's, great commercial house in Glasgow, that Mr. Sinclair, the partner in Buenos Ayres, was in urgent want of an intelligent and well-educated clerk, and had written to his partner and manager, desiring them, either to send one of the young men in their Glasgow office, or to employ one of higher qualifications, if need were, and send him out without delay. Now it happened, wrote Mr. Lumsden's brother, that the house of Sutor and Sinclair had divers other branches, in different parts of the world, and their clerks of experience having been drafted, one by one, to these, they were now left with none of sufficient age, or acquirements, to suit the fastidious Mr. Sinclair, whose letter had conveyed a delicate hint, that if it were possible, he should desire a young man of some culture and breeding to fill the vacant post. Mr. Lumsden's brother further explained, that this was a quiet stroke at the less polished Mr. Sutor, who had previously sent a clerkship, in the shape of a great hearty, joyous, enterprising cub, of