birches that clothed the valley. The answer to her note came in the shape of a dilapidated pony-chaise with a pony in it, whose multifarious occupations left it saddened and subdued in appearance, requiring much persuasion to make it go with any approach to speed. It crept down the hills and it crawled up them, and its winter coat was already thick enough to render it absolutely impervious to a whip, which had grown shorter and lost its lash in service against it. That pony might with much truth have said to any one trying to urge it on, "It amuses you and does not hurt me." Mrs. Dorriman on those rare occasions when she had occasion to go to the nearest town, nine miles off, had borrowed this little turn-out from the farmer who kept it for his invalid mother, and she knew the pony well; when she saw it coming she folded up her letter and went upstairs, putting on her things as though she was going to church, and standing at the door ready to get in when it drew up there. The rosy-cheeked boy who drove, was gifted by nature with no desire for conversation, and Mrs. Dorriman took a book to beguile the tediousness of the way, which she read, as we do at times, without taking in the sense of it, her mind full of the approaching change, and the plan she had suddenly made, and which was at variance with all the previous habits of her life.

That love of beautiful scenery which few people are really born without, made her from time to time raise her head and look around her. High overhead towered the hills on either side, with their huge rents and rifts clothed with mosses, and here and there a patch of grass upon which the hardy little mountain sheep clustered. Lower down, the natural birch-woods were a mass of gold, their colour enhanced by the swaying movement of their graceful boughs, which caught the sunlight and kept it dancing there. One chain of lochs after another swept down the strath with wooded promontories and islands, and the hills rose "peak above peak," carrying the thoughts upwards to that heaven they seemed to reach. There was movement in the air, but the wind, though coming up the strath from the sea, was soft and mild. From a few cottages, that looked miserable enough and yet were warm within, came that smell of peat which to those whose foot has trod the heather all their lives is full of pleasant associations—of fine days, when a bowl of milk and a hunch of oaten bread was enjoyed after the keen air; of wet days, when, wandering far on pony-back and overtaken by the rain, a peat-fire had brought warmth, and comfort, and that real hospitality, which somehow never fails amongst the poor. Mrs. Dorriman in her whole life had been indebted to the poor for all the love and real kindness she had ever known—many a kind woman pitying the motherless child, had cheered her, many a man remembering the sweet sad face of the mother who had lived her short life amongst them, a life short but full of sweetest remembrances to all whom it had touched, had shown their gratitude to the mother in kindness to the child. Nothing had been so painful to her as leaving her old home, not because of any kindness in the home where she had been taught many bitter lessons, but because of the warm close friends who filled her life, and who were to be found in almost every cottage on the hill-side.

Had she been going there, happiness would have predominated over pain, but Mr. Sandford (who made a merit of having no foolish preferences) had sold the old home long ago, and had built a house according to his own taste within two miles of a thriving manufacturing town, and poor Mrs. Dorriman had often enough heard of its smoke, of the trees killed by vapours from some sulphur-works, and of the blighted flowers; and, like all people who live alone and in their own thoughts, exaggerated the miserable prospect before her. She was entirely dependent on her brother, and had no option, but, though she was too timid to make a stand against him, she had enough of the woman in her to think it no harm to circumvent him to a certain extent, especially as he need never know it unless ... and then she broke off thinking, and resolutely buried herself once more in her book, taking in as little of it as before.

She was roused by the sight of the row of small houses which was the beginning of the town, and by the voice of the boy, who broke the two hours' silence and inquired in a stolid voice, "Where wull I put ye doon?"

"At the draper's, Willie; and I will call at the inn when I am ready to go home."

She went into the draper's shop and took thought for a moment—even on such an occasion the habit of her mind was against buying any unnecessary thing—and she gazed a little helplessly at the array of cloth and homespun upon one side of the shop, and at the groceries and barrels of flour and herrings upon the other; the prevailing odour being tarred rope, herrings, and candles of the primitive sort made in the district—dips with much cotton and very little tallow.

The attentive shopman leaned over the counter (she dealt there)—he was half afraid she had come to make some complaint—and he inquired in those dulcet tones in which a distinct fear might have been read, what she required.

Mrs. Dorriman gazed at him a little helplessly and made no answer for a moment or so, and then, in a lower voice than was usual with her, she asked the way to the bank.

Good Mr. Forbes immediately reflected she might have had some bad news, and he moved a chair for her sympathetically, but she would not sit down. Throwing himself over the counter he went to the door and explained that the bank was higher up the street and on the right-hand side—indeed, as the town contained very little except the one very long straggling street, it would have been very difficult to have missed it.

Mrs. Dorriman bowed her thanks, looked out to see that the pony-carriage and boy were well out of sight, having a vague feeling that, if the boy knew she had gone to the bank, all her most private intentions might immediately become known to her brother. Murmuring something indistinct about coming back, she walked up the street, the paving of which was not carried out as a whole, but boasted only of flags before the bettermost houses, and the spaces between were of earth and often muddy.

The unwonted appearance of a lady walking along called every one to their door—the two butchers' shops, not rivals but friends, who killed one sheep on alternate days not to "interfere" with each other—the baker's shop with its complement of bare-footed children around it—the post-office with an imposing board and the most excellent sweeties in one window (which accounted for an occasional stickiness as regarded letters), were all passed, and not giving herself time to think, Mrs. Dorriman hurried on, entered the bank, and asked for Mr. Macfarlane.

Mr. Macfarlane, who had been occasionally at Inchbrae to see her on business, was a little startled by the advent of a woman who had never before been to the bank, and he naturally imagined that some bad news had brought her there.

"I hope," he began, as he came into the small room which was sacred to interviews and away from the hearing of the two young clerks, who wrote diligently at times and made up for their industry at others, by biting the tops of their pens and scanning the county newspaper, every line of which, in default of other literature, they knew by heart—"I hope——"

"It is no bad news," said Mrs. Dorriman, her nervousness betraying itself in her voice; "but there is no one here I can go to about anything—and I want to ask your advice about something."

Mr. Macfarlane knew the world, and he knew also a good deal more about Mrs. Dorriman's position than she did herself. But he was a man who made it a rule never to interfere in any one's business, having enough of his own on his hands. Any one looking at him and having a knowledge of countenances would have seen at once that caution predominated over all other impulses. His expression was an absolute blank