The minister, who was shamed to the heart, and wounded in his _amour propre_ beyond expression by the desertion of Mrs Ainslie, and by the conviction, slowly forced upon him, that she had deceived him, and was no exquisite English lady of high pretensions but an adventuress--felt that the only amends he could make to himself and the world was to carry out his intention of marrying, and that as quickly as possible. Providence, as he piously said, directed his eyes to one of those kind old maids who fill up the crevices of the world, and who are often so humbly ready to take that position of nurse-housekeeper-wife, in which perhaps they can be of more use to their generation than in their solitude, and which satisfies, I suppose, the wish to belong to somebody, and be the first in some life, as well as the mother-yearning in their hearts. Such a blessed solution of the difficulty enchanted the parish, and satisfied the boys and the little girls, who had now unlimited petting to look forward to--and set Susie free. She married Robert Ogilvy soon after his mother’s recovery. Fortunately Mrs Ogilvy was never conscious of the details of the tragedy, and did not know ever what had lain there in the moonlight across her threshold. I doubt if she could have come and gone cheerfully as she did over that door-stone had she ever known. And the young ones full of their own life forgot--and the family of three continued in the Hewan in love and content. Robbie never became a model man. He never did anything, notwithstanding the fulness of his life and strength. He had no impulse to work--rather the reverse: his impulses were all in the way of idleness; he lounged about and occupied himself with trifles, and gardened a little, and carpentered a little, and was never weary. It fretted the two women often, sometimes the length of despair, especially Susie, who would burst out into regrets of all his talents lost, and the great things he might have done. But Mrs Ogilvy did not echo those regrets: she was well enough aware what Robbie’s talents were, and the great things which he would never have done. She represented to her daughter-in-law that if he had been weary of the quiet, if he had grown moody, tired of his idleness, tired of his life, as some men do, there would then have been occasion to complain. “But he is just very happy, God bless him!” his mother said. “And you and me, Susie, we are two happy women; and the Lord be thanked for all He has done for us, and no suffered me to go down famished and fasting to the grave.” PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. * * * * * Catalogue of Messrs Blackwood & Sons’ Publications PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. EDITED BY WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St Andrews.