"Then why should you fear it will draw me from it? I hope I have never made you think I was not following my father and you!" "Who knows what either of us might have done, with such a temptation as yours!" "Either you say, mother, that my father was not so good as I think him, or that he did what he did in his own strength!" "' Let him that thinketh '--you know the rest!" rejoined the mother. "I don't think I am tempted to anything just now." "There it is, you see!--the temptation so subtle that you do not suspect its character!" "I am confident my father would have done just as I mean to do!" "What do you mean to do?" "Is it my own mother asks me? Does she distrust her husband and her son together?" It began to dawn on the mother that she had fallen into her own temptation through distrust of her son. Because she-distrusted him, she sought excuse for him, and excuse had turned to all but justification: she had given place to the devil! But she must be sure about Alister! She had had enough of the wiles of Satan: she must not trust her impressions! The enemy might even now be bent on deceiving her afresh! For a moment she kept silence, then said:-- "It would be a grand thing to have the whole country-side your own again--wouldn't it, Alister?" "It would, mother!" he answered. "And have all your people quite under your own care?" "A grand thing, indeed, mother!" "How can you say then it is no temptation to you?" "Because it is none." "How is that?" "I would not have my clan under a factor of Satan's, mother!" "I do not understand you!" "What else should I be, if I accepted the oversight of them on terms of allegiance to him! That was how he tempted Jesus. I will not be the devil's steward, to call any land or any people mine!" His mother kissed him on the forehead, walked erect from the room, and went to her own to humble herself afresh. In the morning, Alister took his dinner of bread and cheese in his pocket, and set out for the tomb on the hill-top. There he remained until the evening, and wrote his answer, sorely missing Ian. He begged Mr. Peregrine Palmer to dismiss the idea of enriching him, thanked him for his great liberality, but declared himself entirely content, and determined not to change his position. He could not and would not avail himself of his generosity.