‘Ellen says that she often walks out at night to the churchyard, and sits moaning over the graves of her children. It is strange after they have been so long dead, that her grief should have so unexpectedly broken out afresh. The minister, I am sure, is very uneasy--for I have noticed that he looks paler than he used to do, and with a degree of sadness that is really very affecting.’ While they were thus speaking Mr. Walkinshaw came in, and the first words he said, before taking a seat, were,-- ‘Is the minister’s wife in her right mind? She seems to me a little touched. I could with difficulty preserve my gravity at her fantastical nonsense.’ Mrs. Charles, out of respect for her friend, did not choose to make any reply to this observation, so that her brother-in-law found himself obliged to revert to the business which had brought him to Camrachle. ‘I thought James was here,’ said he; ‘what has become of him?’ ‘He has just stepped out.--I suspect he was not exactly prepared to meet you.’ ‘He is hot and hasty,’ rejoined the uncle; ‘we had rather an unpleasant conversation last night. I hope, since he has had time to reflect on what I said, he sees things differently.’ ‘I am grieved,’ replied Mrs. Charles with a sigh, ‘that anything should have arisen to mar the prospects that your kindness had opened to him. But young men will be headstrong; their feelings often run away with their judgement.’ ‘But,’ said Kittlestonheugh, ‘I can forgive him. I never looked for any conduct in him different from that of others of his own age. Folly is the superfluous blossoms of youth: they drop off as the fruit forms. I hope he is not resolute in adhering to his declaration about leaving Glasgow.’ ‘He seems at present quite resolved,’ replied his mother, with a deep and slow sigh, which told how heavily that determination lay upon her heart. ‘Perhaps, then,’ said his uncle, ‘it may just be as well to leave him to himself for a few days; and I had better say nothing more to him on the subject.’ ‘I think,’ replied Mrs. Charles, timidly, as if afraid that she might offend,--‘it is needless at present to speak to him about Robina: he must have time to reflect.’--She would have added, ‘on the great advantages of the match to him;’ but knowing, as she did, the decided sentiments of her son, she paused in the unfinished sentence, and felt vexed with herself for having said so much. ‘But,’ inquired her brother-in-law, in some degree solaced by the manner in which she had expressed herself--‘But, surely, the boy will not be so ridiculous as to absent himself from the counting-house?’ ‘He speaks of going abroad,’ was the soft and diffident answer. ‘Impossible! he has not the means.’ She then told him what he had been considering with respect to his father’s old acquaintance, who had the vessel going to America.