moved in her spirit, and expressing often her strong emotion aloud. "Isabel Balfour," she murmured to herself, stopping as she passed, to turn upon the picture a look of deep and sorrowful affection. "Ay, Sholto, it is her bairn, her firstborn, the son of her right hand. If ye were here, Sholto Douglas, where you should have been, but for God's pleasure, what would you spare for Isabel's son, that should have been yours also, and a Douglas? I envied you your bride and your bairns, Strathoran, for _his_ sake that I left lying in foreign earth, and now your home is left to you desolate--woe's me! woe's me!" Mrs. Catherine turned away and paced the room again, with quick and uneasy steps: "Unrighteous? I know it is unrighteous; but if he had been Sholto's son, what would I not have done for him, short of sin? and he _is_ Isabel's--" A footstep approached, through the passage, as she spoke, and controlling herself instantly, Mrs. Catherine opened the door to admit Anne Ross. "What is the matter?" exclaimed Anne, as she entered. "What has happened, Mrs. Catherine, that you are here?" "Nothing, but that I am in a sore strait, and am needing counsel," said Mrs. Catherine, closing the door; "sit down upon that seat, child, that I may speak to you." Anne silently took the chair, and Mrs. Catherine seated herself at the other side of the small table, with her dead brother's picture looking down upon her from the wall. "Anne," she said, gravely, "you have heard the history of Sholto Douglas, and I need not begin and tell it here again. Look upon him there, in the picture, and see what manner of man he was. And you have heard of Isabel Balfour, the trysted bride of the dead, and how, when he had been in his grave but two twelvemonths, she was wedded to Strathoran. I blamed her not, Anne, though I myself was truer to the memory of my one brother; but wherefore am I speaking thus? There are two lads, Anne, to whom I may do service. One is, as I have heard, an honorable and upright young man, born to better fortune than he has inherited, and toiling manfully, as becomes the son of a good house; besides that, there is a kindred of blood between us. And the other is a rioter, wasting his substance, and dishonoring his name in a strange country. I am in a strait between, the two, which will I help, and which will I pass by?" "Mrs. Catherine," said Anne, anxiously, "what can I say? I fear that I can see whom you mean; but how can I advise?" "The well-doing lad is James Aytoun, the brother of the bairn Alice," said Mrs. Catherine, "who is working an honorable and just work to win back the inheritance of his fathers. The rioter is Isabel Balfour's one son--that might have been your first-born, Sholto Douglas! and I am in a sore struggle between my reason and my liking. The boy has gotten in to my inmost heart, as if he had been truly Sholto's son, and I cannot see him fall."