Mrs. Maclehose, on the following evening, stood in the window of her little room, lost in agitating thought. The poet’s impassioned letter was in the bosom of her dress, and seemed to burn her, but with a delicious pain. At almost any other juncture of her commerce with the man it would have frightened her; for the little woman, in spite of her impetuosity, had some obscure element of the national caution in her nature. But now she was in a state when caution must give way to the fiercer and more primitive passions. For nearly three weeks now she had suffered a frenzy of jealous love, and during the absence of her friend, as she called him, was not only tortured with a longing for the sight of him, but also with horrible fears of his infidelity. She had pictured him as returned within the sphere of the influence of Jean Armour—a person she insisted upon regarding as a low-minded, artful hussy with designs upon the Bard. License to almost any degree she would allow the man, whose nature she made allowances for with an amazing liberality; it was the idea of matrimony she dreaded with an anguish of jealous dread. But the poet’s letter had brought ample reassurance: he was returned to his Clarinda, more in love with her—more impassioned, than when he went away. He implored for an interview that night, but it must be private. He had matters to discuss of the utmost importance, but they were for her ear alone. He conjured her, by all that was most sacred in love and friendship, to let no third person intrude upon the happiness of their first reunion. Well ... she would not tell Alison that he came, and Alison would go to bed: that was all. But then, the girl slept so light, and had an ear so sensitive ... she must, in that confined space, hear voices...? Nancy knit her soft brows, and behind them, her busy, tortuous little brain made plans. Alison had been out of doors with Willy that afternoon, and returned somewhat late. It was a blustering spring evening, with a shrewd edge to the wind, and when the girl came into the parlour at the late tea-time there was an unquestionable redness about her eyelids. Alas! it was not the wind that smirched her fair good looks, but tears. For poor Alison, in these days, would cry a little, uncomforted, in her closet, choking back the tears. ’Why, Ally, you have got the cold!’ said Nancy. ’I can see it in your eyes.’ Alison turned quickly from the light. ’I never get the cold,’ she said. But Nancy insisted, and harped upon the ailment—she was convinced that Alison had an influenza coming.