’Hoots!’ said the laird. ’It was when miss was sent to Edinburgh to the school, being become too forward for her age, as all were well agreed, and Maclehose could not get acquaint with her, for all he had tried. So he ups and takes every place in the coach she was going by to Edinburgh, and so he got the lass to himself, and a bonny way to do it, too!’ ’And what was the end of it all?’ said Mrs. Graham, witheringly. ’If ye must tell thae tales before these lasses,’—they were, indeed, seated at table, and six pairs of ears were taking in with avidity these indiscreet revelations of love’s audacity,—’it ill beseems you, the father of a family, to forget the lesson that’s aye in them! But _I’ll_ tell ye what came o’ all that havering trash o’ coortin’ in a coach, fast enough! They hadn’t been married five years, when off goes the fine young buck to live among savages at the West Indies, and leaves his wife and bairns to charity at home. And that’s love, misses! Love!’ she continued, in tones of immeasurable scorn, ’love, indeed! A guid stick is a better name for it, for that’s what it comes to in the end as often as not. I e’en wish your silly sister Alison was down here this minute to get this fine love story! It would do her good!’ And the mother of seven daughters, having pointed a moral with due emphasis, went off to count napkins out of the linen press. The six younger Miss Grahams then relaxed the solemnity of their listening countenances, and chattered among themselves of this tale of a lover and a coach, with a great impatience to behold its heroine. That lady, meanwhile, in no very heroine-like mood, was being jolted towards The Mains in an old country post-chaise—an interminable cross-country journey along muddy by-roads, in the lashing rain and wind of the autumn day. She almost repented the impulse which had induced her to come out of her way to renew acquaintance with the friends of her girlhood. ’It’s little but sad memories I’m like to get for my pains,’ said she. Stiff with long travel, cold, weary, and even wet, for the deluging rain dripped through the covering of the crazy old trap, she was landed at the door of The Mains in the murk of the evening, just as the laird descended the front stair from his daughter’s room. What he saw was a little, slight woman’s figure, covered from head to foot in a black hood and mantle, stepping in out of the dark, and receiving a genteel welcome from his excellent lady. ’Come in, come in,’ the lady of The Mains was saying, standing in the hall, in her best silk dress, flanked by a shy daughter or two. ’You are welcome, Mrs. Maclehose—_Nancy_, it used to be!’ ’It must be "Nancy" still, surely!’ So sweet a voice it was that spoke, that the sudden contrast to the country lady’s hearty tones was like the change from a trumpet to some delicate stringed instrument that thrills upon the ear. It was quite drowned in the laird’s jovial welcome which ensued.