’Ah, child!’ she said, ’’tis some love trouble, never tell me it isn’t! Tell me about it, for I am more learned in such than any other person in the world! I am an old friend of your mother’s, but not so very old neither, in years, you know; and I am Nancy—Nancy Maclehose, to my sorrow. Now, come, out with it; ’tis a love tale—I know!’ ’If it is,’ cried Alison, between laughter and tears, but fairly won,’ ’tis a love tale with no love in it, ma’am!’ ’The very worst kind of all!’ cried the confidante, serenely. ’And now, sure, I know all about it without being told! ’Tis some marriage they are forcing upon you for prudence’ sake: some suitor—distasteful, old, uncouth—’ ’Ah! they’ve been telling you,’ murmured Alison, blushing. ’Not a word—I swear!’ cried the vivacious little lady, enchanted at her own sagacity. ’But am I not right? A distasteful marriage, dictated by prudence; a fond heart that will have none of it, but faithful to another—’ ’Ah! now there you are at fault,’ began Alison, and then paused: why should she, to a perfect stranger, confess the humiliating fact that she had no lover, and no secret romance? But her native honesty prevailed. ’There is no "another,"’ she murmured, shame-facedly. ’Some day there will be, then!’ said Mrs. Maclehose, cheerfully, ’and you, be faithful to him, child!’ ’Faithful?’ cried Alison, wide-eyed. ’But I’ve never seen him, ma’am; he doesn’t exist.’ ’Ah! he _does_ exist, somewhere—a kindred soul,’ said the romantic visitor, nodding sagely. ’He is only waiting for the chance—the divine chance....’ ’I doubt he will never get it at The Mains,’ said the prosaic Alison. ’Faint heart!’ cried Mrs. Maclehose. ’Believe in Love, the greatest of all the gods!’ Alison, never thus adjured before, looked doubtful. ’My mother and father tell me not to think about love,’ she said, hesitatingly; ’they say ’tis a delusion.’ ’They blaspheme, child!’ cried the visitor, with energy. ’’Tis love that has wrought me all the woe in my own span of life, God wot, yet I believe in him—believe in him still, with all my heart and soul.... But tell me, love,’ she went on, breaking off in her rhapsody, ’who is it they would tie you to?’ ’’Tis a Mr. Cheape of Kincarley, in Fife,’ said Alison, hanging her head. Mrs. Maclehose uttered a little trill of laughter. ’Oh, never, never, Mr. Cheape!’ she tittered. ’Don’t tell me ’tis the inevitable, the invincible, the inveterate Jimmy Cheape! ...’ ’Then you know him?’ cried Alison, eagerly. ’Oh, Lord, child!’ said Mrs. Maclehose, ’who doesn’t, dear? He has stumped the streets of Edinburgh, and every sizeable town in the country, in search of a wife this twenty years and more! Jimmy Cheape! No, Alison (for you’ll let me call you Alison? I like you, child, and will love you, I know—’tis all arranged by our Fates). No, no! ’tis not you that are destined for Mr. Cheape; never think it!’