I went in, for there was a geniality in the tone to which I was unaccustomed, and something whispered to me the hope of an adventure, as indeed it proved to be, if an event deserves that name which decided the course of my whole destiny. "What war ye greeting about, then? What was the book?" "'Bethune's Life and Poems,' sir," I said. "And certainly they did affect me very much." "Affect ye? Ah, Johnnie Bethune, puir fellow! Ye maunna take on about sic like laddies, or ye'll greet your e'en out o' your head. It's mony a braw man beside Johnnie Bethune has gane Johnnie-Bethune's gate." Though unaccustomed to the Scotch accent, I could make out enough of this speech to be in nowise consoled by it. But the old man turned the conversation by asking me abruptly my name, and trade, and family. "Hum, hum, widow, eh? puir body! work at Smith's shop, eh? Ye'll ken John Crossthwaite, then? ay? hum, hum; an' ye're desirous o' reading books? vara weel--let's see your cawpabilities." And he pulled me into the dim light of the little back window, shoved back his spectacles, and peering at me from underneath them, began, to my great astonishment, to feel my head all over. "Hum, hum, a vara gude forehead--vara gude indeed. Causative organs large, perceptive ditto. Imagination superabundant--mun be heeded. Benevolence, conscientiousness, ditto, ditto. Caution--no that large--might be developed," with a quiet chuckle, "under a gude Scot's education. Just turn your head into profile, laddie. Hum, hum. Back o' the head a'thegither defective. Firmness sma'--love of approbation unco big. Beware o' leeing, as ye live; ye'll need it. Philoprogenitiveness gude. Ye'll be fond o' bairns, I'm guessing?" "Of what?" "Children, laddie,--children." "Very," answered I, in utter dismay at what seemed to me a magical process for getting at all my secret failings. "Hum, hum! Amative and combative organs sma'--a general want o' healthy animalism, as my freen' Mr. Deville wad say. And ye want to read books?" I confessed my desire, without, alas! confessing that my mother had forbidden it. "Vara weel; then books I'll lend ye, after I've had a crack wi' Crossthwaite aboot ye, gin I find his opinion o' ye satisfactory. Come to me the day after to-morrow. An' mind, here are my rules:--a' damage done to a book to be paid for, or na mair books lent; ye'll mind to take no books without leave; specially ye'll mind no to read in bed o' nights,--industrious folks ought to be sleeping' betimes, an' I'd no be a party to burning puir weans in their beds; and lastly, ye'll observe not to read mair than five books at once." I assured him that I thought such a thing impossible; but he smiled in his saturnine way, and said--