Wedderburn who insisted upon every means being taken to secure the poor remains, and that not for certainty of the fact, but for decent burial. There is no coroner’s inquest in Scotland; but an inquiry into all the circumstances was immediately set on foot, an inquiry at first in which there was no certain evidence but the piteous heap of clothes, the respectable garments in which every man of business goes to town. The papers left in the pocket, the few shillings on the sands, the notes in his pocket-book, were all so many unconscious witnesses to the accident, all proving how accidental, how unlooked-for, was this cutting short of his career. There was even a withered rose in his coat, a pale China rose from one corner of the terrace at Yalton, which Mr. Wedderburn recognised with a pang, as if it had been one of the children. The tears blinded the middle-aged lawyer’s eyes as he took this faded thing out of his friend’s coat, brushed off the sand from the withered leaves, and put it in his pocket-book reverently. All who were present looked on at this little incident as if it had been a religious rite. It may be added here that the naked remains of a drowned man were found a few weeks afterwards on the east sands of Portobello. Needless to say that they were quite unrecognisable; but the height and size, and the absence of clothing, made it as nearly certain as any such thing could be that this was all that remained of Robert Dalyell. Meanwhile that fatal day passed over at Yalton, the first part very quietly, as usual, in the ordinary occupations of the household. It was a beautiful morning, full of comfort and good hope, and Mrs. Dalyell was busy in her house. It was the day for the overseeing and paying of the weekly bills, and there were various repairs necessary before the winter set in which she had to look after, and a great deal of linen--napery as she called it--had come in from the laundry, which it was essential to examine to see what wanted renewing and what it would be possible to darn and keep in use. Old Janet Macalister was famous for her darning. Old as she was, it was still, Mrs. Dalyell said, “a pleasure to see” her work. It was an ornament to the tablecloths rather than a blemish. Old Janet was in great activity, almost agitation. She appeared in the house, as she very rarely did, and talked so much in an excited way, that the servants thought her “fey.” She went with Mrs. Dalyell to the housekeeper’s room, uninvited, to examine the linen. “Dinna put that away. I can darn that fine,” old Janet said to many articles over which her mistress shook her head. “Losh! what’s the good o’ me, eatin’ bread and burnin’ fire this mony mony a year, if I canna keep the napery in order!” she cried. Her head, which was slightly palsied, nodded more than usual, her large pale hands shook; but her voice was strong, and she ended every sentence with a harsh laugh. “I am afraid you are not very well to-day, Janet,” said Mrs. Dalyell.