On this particular evening it was Mr Logan, the minister, who gave her this thrill of strong expectation, this disappointment--which was not a disappointment. He found nothing that was out of the way in her peaceful looks, neither the one sensation nor the other, but sat down beside her, pleased with this conclusion to his summer evening’s walk, and the delightful air and pleasant view, and the calm of the Hewan, in which everybody said there was such an atmosphere of repose and peace. Mr Logan was a country minister of what is now called the old school. He was not a man who had ever thought of making innovations or disturbing the old order of affairs. His services were just the same as they had been when he was ordained some thirty years before. He had baptised a great part of his parishioners, and married the others, so that there were only the quite old folk, patriarchs of the parish, who could remember the time when he was first “placed” at Eskholm, and opposed by some, though always “well likit” by others. He was considered by Mrs Ogilvy and many ladies of the parish to be a very personable man, comely in his grey hair, with a good presence and a good voice, and altogether a wyss-like man. This description, which is so common in Scotland, has nothing to do with the wisdom of the person described, who may be very wyss-like without being at all wise. Mr Logan sat down and stretched out discreetly his long legs. He had the shadow, or rather the subdued light, of a smile hovering about his face. He looked as if he had something agreeable to tell. “And how is Susie?” Mrs Ogilvy said. “Susie,” he said, with a change of expression which did not look quite so genuine as the lurking smile. “Oh, Susie, poor thing, she is just in her ordinary; but that is not very well----” “Not well! Susie? But she has just been wonderful in her health and her cheery ways.” “Ay, ay! she has kept up to the outside of her strength; but I have never thought she was equal to it. You will do me the justice to remember that I always said that. These big boys are too much for her; and now that they’re coming and going to Edinburgh every day, and all the trouble of getting them off in the morning, with sandwiches for George who is in his office, and a piece for Walter and Jamie who are at the school: and the two little ones all the day at home, and me on the top of all, that am perhaps accustomed to have too much attention paid to me----” The lurking smile came forth again, much subdued, so that nobody could ask the minister brutally, “What are you smiling at?” “Dear me,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “I am very much astonished. I have always thought there was nobody like Susie for managing the whole flock.” “She is a good girl, a very good girl; but it’s too much for her, Mrs Ogilvy. I’ve always said so. She takes after her mother, and you know my--wife was far from strong.”