“No! no! never mind,” she cried. “I was just making a picture of a girl I once knew--poor lass! and of what she might have been. But she's dead--dead and buried. I hope, after all, your Isobel is a nobler woman than the one I was thinking on and a happier destiny awaiting her.” “That cannot matter much to me now,” I said, “for, as I told you, there is nothing any more between us--except--except a corp upon the heather.” She shuddered as she did the first time I told her of my tragedy, and sucked in the air again through her clenched teeth. “Poor lad! poor lad!” said she. “And you have quite lost her. If so, and the thing must be, then this glass coach of Father Hamilton's must take you to the country of forgetfulness. I wish I could drive there myself this minute, but wae's me, there's no chariot at the _remise_ that'll do that business for John Walkinshaw's girl.” Something inexpressively moving was in her mien, all her heart was in her face as it seemed; a flash of fancy came to me that she was alone in the world with nothing of affection to hap her round from its abrasions, and that her soul was crying out for love. Sweet beyond expression was this woman and I was young; up to my feet I rose, and turned on her a face that must have plainly revealed my boyish passion. “Miss Walkinshaw,” I said, “you may put me out of this door for ever, but I'm bound to say I'm going travelling in no glass coach; Dunkerque will be doing very well for me.” Her lips trembled; her cheek turned pale; she placed a hand upon her breast, and there was I contrite before her anger! “Is this--is this your respect and your esteem, Mr. Greig?” she asked brokenly. “They were never greater than at this moment,” I replied. “And how are they to be manifested by your waiting on in Dunkerque?” she asked, recovering her colour and some of her ordinary manner. How indeed? She had no need to ask me the question, for it was already ringing through my being. That the Spoiled Horn from Mearns, an outlaw with blood on his hands and borrowed money in his pocket, should have the presumption to feel any ardour for this creature seemed preposterous to myself, and I flushed in an excess of shame and confusion. This seemed completely to reassure her. “Oh, Mr. Greig--Mr. Greig, was I not right to ask if ye were the man ye seemed? Here's a nice display o' gallantry from my giant son! I believe you are just makin' fun o' this auld wife; and if no' I hae just one word for you, Paul Greig, and it's this that I said afore--jist havers!” She went to her spinet and ran her fingers over the keys and broke into a song-- Oh, what ails the laddie, new twined frae his mither? The laddie gallantin' roun' Tibbie and me?--