Miss St. John had long since returned from her visit, but having heard how much Robert was taken up with his dying friend, she judged it better to leave her intended proposal of renewing her lessons alone for the present. Meeting him, however, soon after Alexander's death, she introduced the subject, and Robert was enraptured at the prospect of the re-opening of the gates of his paradise. If he did not inform his grandmother of the fact, neither did he attempt to conceal it; but she took no notice, thinking probably that the whole affair would be effectually disposed of by his departure. Till that period arrived, he had a lesson almost every evening, and Miss St. John was surprised to find how the boy had grown since the door was built up. Robert's gratitude grew into a kind of worship. The evening before his departure for Bodyfauld--whence his grandmother had arranged that he should start for Aberdeen, in order that he might have the company of Mr. Lammie, whom business drew thither about the same time--as he was having his last lesson, Mrs. Forsyth left the room. Thereupon Robert, who had been dejected all day at the thought of the separation from Miss St. John, found his heart beating so violently that he could hardly breathe. Probably she saw his emotion, for she put her hand on the keys, as if to cover it by showing him how some movement was to be better effected. He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips. But when he found that instead of snatching it away, she yielded it, nay gently pressed it to his face, he burst into tears, and dropped on his knees, as if before a goddess. 'Hush, Robert! Don't be foolish,' she said, quietly and tenderly. 'Here is my aunt coming.' The same moment he was at the piano again, playing My Bonny Lady Ann, so as to astonish Miss St. John, and himself as well. Then he rose, bade her a hasty good-night, and hurried away. A strange conflict arose in his mind at the prospect of leaving the old place, on every house of whose streets, on every swell of whose surrounding hills he left the clinging shadows of thought and feeling. A faintly purpled mist arose, and enwrapped all the past, changing even his grayest troubles into tales of fairyland, and his deepest griefs into songs of a sad music. Then he thought of Shargar, and what was to become of him after he was gone. The lad was paler and his eyes were redder than ever, for he had been weeping in secret. He went to his grandmother and begged that Shargar might accompany him to Bodyfauld. 'He maun bide at hame an' min' his beuks,' she answered; 'for he winna hae them that muckle langer. He maun be doin' something for himsel'.'