She could not but admit that that, in fact, was just the difficulty. The cultivation of sentiment had not been included in Mr. Walkingshaw's youthful curriculum. His father before him had enjoyed but two forms of relaxation from his daily burden of obligations to clients and Calvin--a glass of good claret, and a primitive form of golf played with a missile of feathers in the interstices of a tract of whins. His mother had not even these amusements. Small wonder Heriot Walkingshaw found it a little difficult to sympathize with soft creatures who demanded hot-water bottles at night and affection by day. Jean had a weakness for both, and had only managed to obtain the hot bottle--and even that was a secret. The deluge continued and the wind bellowed. Lower and lower sank their spirits. "I sometimes wish I were more like Andrew," sighed Jean. The young soldier started. "Oh, Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, and then in a moment added in a low voice, "I wish I had his luck, though." Jean softly pressed his hand. She understood. "I wish you had, Frank," she whispered. As if in rebuking answer to these impious desires, the portly form of Andrew filled the doorway. He looked like the reincarnation of all the mourners who had ever followed a hearse. "He is worse," he said in a sepulchral voice. "The end's not far off. You had better come up and see him." In the sick chamber they found already assembled Miss Walkingshaw, Mrs. Dunbar, Ellen (who kept in the background and never caught Frank's eye once), and their two elder sisters. Of this pair, Maggie, the eldest of them all, had long been coupled with Andrew as the two greatest credits to the family. She was the wife (and incidentally, it was said, the making) of Ramornie of Pettigrew, a laird of good estate in the kingdom of Fife. Her business capacity was almost equal to her brother's. She had extracted Pettigrew from the hands of the friends who had been "doing him no good," paid off the bonds on his property, presented him with three creditable children, including the necessary heir male, and would undoubtedly have put him into Parliament could she have ensured her own presence always at his side. But as he would have to deliver his speeches himself, even if she composed them, she was content with making him a deputy-lieutenant. In person this lady suggested the junior partner as well as in mind. She, however, was blonde, and though her cheeks took after his, her upper lip was not quite so substantial.