Fred could not tell what to think: he was angry and vexed and cast down by the strange reception he had received. The first night at home, which was always so pleasant, the girls hanging about him with a hundred things to ask and to tell, his mother beaming with affection and pleasure on her united family. And here he was left alone, the lamps burning with a sort of calm intelligence as if they knew all about it, the clock chuckling at him on the mantel-piece. Foggo came in with the tea-tray, and looked round in astonishment for the ladies, then shook his head solemnly and went away, leaving the little silver kettle boiling over its spirit-lamp. Foggo knew too. The very kettle puffed out its steam in Fred’s face like a mockery. Everybody knew--except the forlorn young master of the house, who knew nothing, and could not even form a guess what the mystery could be. He was not however destined to spend that night in uncertainty. As he went upstairs, passing with a sense of injury the closed doors of his mother’s and his sisters’ rooms, Fred heard himself called in a whisper from the end of the corridor. Had he reflected for a moment he would have known who it must be. But with his mind full of his present trouble he did not reflect; he turned round quickly, hoping to see one of his sisters, and it was not till he found himself in the clutches of old Janet that he recognised the danger of her interference. “Has she told ye, Mr. Fred?” whispered the old woman, approaching her formidable head in the big mutch, and with its little palsied movement, to the young man’s face. “Told me what?” he cried with impatience. “Oh, my bonnie lad, dinna lose your temper--you’ll have need of all your patience. That she’s going to be married upon Pat Wedderburn!”