the brown cow and John’s pigsty, and Mrs. Bellingham, as has been said, had a headache. Effie peeped into the West Chamber and the long room, and saw nobody. And then she said, “Have you ever been on the tower, Mr. Burnside? Oh, do come up to the tower.” Randal had climbed the tower a hundred times in former days. He went up the winding stair very willingly, thinking he would have all the better chance of seeing “the others,” when the falling night drove them in from their walks. Perhaps “the others” meant only the new Sir Ludovic; perhaps it had another significance. He was interested about Margaret, he allowed to himself--more interested than he dared let any one know; for had he not almost seen a lover’s parting between her and Rob Glen?--a secret knowledge which made him very uneasy. Randal felt that he could not betray them; it would be a base thing in their contemporary--or so, at least, he thought; but he was uneasy. Many thoughts had gone through his mind on this subject. He did not know what to do. The only thing that seemed to him possible was to speak to Rob Glen himself, to represent to him that it was not manly or honorable to engage a girl in Margaret’s position, without the knowledge and consent of her friends. But to make such a statement to a young man of your own age, with whom you have not the warrant of friendship for your interference, nor even the warrant of equality, is a difficult thing to do. If Rob, resenting it, could have called him out, there would have been less harm; but that was ridiculous, and what could be done to expiate such an affront? There was nothing to be done, unless he permitted Rob to knock him down, and he did not feel that his forbearance was equal to that. So that Randal remained very uneasy on this subject, and did not know what to do. To let Margaret fall into the hands of a--of Rob Glen, seemed desolation and sacrilege; but what could Randal--who had known them both from his cradle--what could he do between them. Was it his part to _tell_--most despicable of all offices in the opinion of youth? This train of uneasy thought was brought back when Effie looked into the little white-panelled sitting-room, the West Chamber, where Margaret, he knew, spent most of her time. She liked it better than the long room, every nook of which was so full of her father’s memory; and the ladies humored her, and, small as it was, made the West Chamber their centre. Where was she, if she was not there? Possibly out-of-doors in the soft evening, confiding all her griefs to Rob Glen. Possibly it was the thought that Randal himself would have liked to have those griefs confided to him, and to act the part of comforter, that made his blood burn at this imagination. So soon after her father’s death! He felt disposed to despise Margaret too.