watchman, and keep the house, that nothing harmful to her Robbie should come near. Oh, but for the pickle money! there was no danger for that. She would like to see what a paltry thief would do in Robbie’s hands. With this in her mind she went back, her heart rising with every step. From the train she could see the back of the Hewan rising among the trees--not a desolate house any longer, for Robbie was there. How ill to please she had been, finding faults in him just because he was a boy no longer, but a man, with his own thoughts and his own ways! But to have been parted from him these few hours cleared up a great deal. She went home eagerly, her face regaining its colour and its brightness. She was going back not to an empty house, but to Robbie. It was as if this, and not the other mingled moment, more full of trouble than joy, was to be the mother’s first true meeting with her son after so many years. CHAPTER VIII. When Mrs Ogilvy reached, somewhat breathless, the height of the little brae on which her own door, standing wide open in the sunshine, offered her the usual unconscious welcome which that modest house in its natural condition held out to every comer, it was with a pang of disappointment she heard that Robert had gone out. For a moment her heart sank. She had been looking forward to the sight of him. She had felt that to-day, after her short absence, she would see him without prejudice, able to make allowance for everything, not looking any longer for her Robbie of old, but accustomed and reconciled to the new--the mature man into which inevitably in all these years he must have grown. She had hurried home, though the walk from the station was rather too much for her, to realise these expectations, eager, full of love and hope. Her heart fluttered a little: the light went out of her eyes for a moment; she sat down, all the strength gone out of her. But this was only for a moment. “To be sure, Janet,” she said, “he has gone in to Edinburgh to--see about his luggage. I mean, to get himself some--things he wanted.” Janet had a long face, as long as a winter’s night and almost as dark. Her mistress could have taken her by the shoulders and shaken her. What right had she to take it upon her to misdoubt her young master, or to be so anxious as that about him--as if she were one that had a right to be “meeserable” whatever might happen? “Could he not have gane with you, mem, when you were going in yoursel’?” “He was not ready,” said Mrs Ogilvy, feeling herself put on her defence. “You might have waited, mem, till the next train----” “If you will know,” cried Mrs Ogilvy, indignant, “my boy liked best to be free, to take his own way--and I hope there is no person in this house that will gainsay that.” “Eh, mem, I’m aware it’s no for me to speak--but so soon, afore he has got accustomed to being at hame--and with siller in his pouch.” “What do you know about his siller in his pouch?” cried the angry mistress.