“Never mind: I’ll come with you,” said his companion, and what could Archie say? He made a hurried explanation to one of the performers that he was compelled to go, and the two left the field. Even then Archie made another attempt to throw off this too close companion. “It’s a pity,” he said, “to take you away. I’m not going to see anybody that’s interesting. It is an old body, an old--relation; nothing that will please you.” “You don’t do me justice,” said Eddy. “I tell you people are what I care for; and you know my taste for ladies. Old ladies are my favourite study--when there are no young ones in the way.” “There are no young ones,” said Archie, in despair; “and I don’t want to take you away.” “Oh, I like it,” said Eddy, and thrust his hand through the other’s arm. There was, therefore, nothing to be done but to accept the leading of fate. How strange and wonderful now were all these familiar ways that led to the Sauchiehall Road! Already the work of time and change had operated upon them. They were narrow, and mean, and grey, not comfortable and friendly as they had once looked. The houses small and poor, the streets confined and filthy, the whole complexion of the place altered. He had not known what a homely, poor part of the town it was: he saw it now as if it were a new place with which he was making acquaintance for the first time. And when he came in sight of the house in Sauchiehall Road, the familiar house with its front door, so dignified a feature, and the big elderberry tree filling up the little space before the door! The blinds were drawn carefully half over the window, except in the little parlour downstairs, where everything was open, the little muslin curtain over the lower part of the window tucked up that Mrs. Brown might see--who was sitting there at her knitting, carefully looking out upon the street, for something new. What a changed life it was for Mrs. Brown; no young people running out and in, no merry companions, no little vanities to minister to, no little quarrels and frettings, but a dead load of solitary comfort, good things which she ate alone, and new dresses which nobody saw. She gave “a skreigh,” as she herself would have said, as she saw Archie coming up the path, and flew herself to open the door for him. “Eh, my bonnie man!” cried Mrs. Brown. She did not fling herself on his neck and kiss him, for that was not according to her reserved Scotch ways, but she held both his hands, and swayed him slightly by them, gazing into his face with eyes full of ecstacy and tears. “Eh, Archie, but it’s a pleasure to see ye. Eh, my bonnie man!” “I am glad to see you again, Aunty Jane,” said Archie. “I was in Glasgow for the day, and I’ve come to see you; and I’ve got a friend with me--a friend from England.”