“It is an old story, it is nothing new,” said the minister’s wife. “It is a grand rule, Elsie, not to let your right hand know what your left doeth in the way of charity; but when it’s such a modern thing as a loan of money, oh, I’m afraid the worldly way is maybe the best way. If Mr. Anderson had written it down in his books, The Rev. Claude Buchanan, Dr.--as they do, you know, in the tradesmen’s bills--to loan £300--well, then, it might have been disagreeable, but we should have known the worst of it, and it would have been paid off by this time. But the good old man kept no books; and when he died, it was just left on our consciences to pay it or not. Oh, Elsie, siller is a terrible burden on your conscience when you have not got it to pay! God forgive us! what with excuses and explanations, and trying to make out that it was just an accident and so forth, I am not sure that I have always been quite truthful myself.” “You never told lies, mother,” said Elsie. “Maybe not, if you put it like that; but there’s many a lee that is not a lee, in the way of excuses for not paying a bill. You’ll say, perhaps, ‘Dear me, I am very sorry; I have just paid away the last I set aside for bills, till next term comes round;’ when, in fact, you had nothing set aside, but just paid what you had, and as little as you could, to keep things going! It’s not a lee, so to speak, and yet it is a lee, Elsie! A poor woman, with a limited income, has just many, many things like that on her mind. We’ve never wronged any man of a penny.” “No, mother, I’m sure of that.” “But they have waited long for their siller, and maybe as much in want of it as we were,” Mrs. Buchanan said, shaking her head. “Anyway, if it’s clear put down in black and white, there is an end of it. You know you have to pay, and you just make up your mind to it. But, when it is just left to your conscience, and you to be the one to tell that you are owing--oh, Elsie! Lead us not into temptation. I hope you never forget that prayer, morning nor evening. If you marry a man that is not rich, you will have muckle need of it day by day.” Elsie seemed to see, as you will sometimes see by a gleam of summer lightning, a momentary glimpse of a whole country-side--a panorama of many past years. The scene was the study up-stairs, where her father was sitting, often pausing in his work, laying down his pen, giving himself up to sombre thoughts. “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore,” she said to herself, under her breath.