The herald., 1896-05-03

long and happy yet, and We must see to it.
Kirstie, like Gods rational creatures, and
not like fool children. There is one thing
we must see to before all. You're worth
waiting for, Kirstie! worth waiting for
generation it would be enough reward"
And here he remembered the schoolmaster
again, and very unwisely took to follow
ing wisdom. 'The first thing that we
must see to it that there shall be no
scandal about, for my fathers sake. That
would ruin all. Do We no see that?"
Kirstie was a little pleased, there had
been some show of warmth of sentiment in
what Archie had said last. But the dull irrl-
tation still persisted in her bosom; with
the aboriginal instinct, having suffered
herself, she wished to make Archie suffer.
And besides, there had come out the
word she had always feared to hear from
his lips, the name of his father. 1t is not
to be supposed that, during so many days
with love avowed between them, some
reference had not been made to their con-
Joint future. 1t had, in fact, often been
touched upon, and from the first had been
the sore point. Kirstie had wlfully closed
the eye of thought; she would not argue
even with herself; gallant, desperate little
heart, she had accepted the command Of
that supreme attraction like the call of
fate, and marched blndfolded on her doom.
But Archie, with his masculine sense of
responsibility, must reason: he must
dwell on some future good, when the pres
ent good was all in all to Kirstie; he must
falkland talk lamely, as necessity drove
him-of what was to be. Again and again
he had touched on marriage; again and
again been driven back into indistinctness
by memory of Lord Hermiston. And
Kirstie had been swift to understand, and
quick to choke down and smother the un-
derstanding; swift to leap up in flame at
mention of that hope, which spoke vol
umes to her vanity and her love, that she
might one day be Mistress Weir, of Her
miston; swift, also, to recognise in his
stumbling or throttled utterance, the
death-knell Of these expectations; and con-
slant, poor girl! in her large-minded mad
ness, to go on and to reck nothing Of the
future. But these unfinished references
these blinks in which his heart spoke, and
his memory and reason rose up to silence
| it before the words were well uttered, gave
her unqualifable agony. She was raised
| up and dashed down again bleeding. The
recurrence of the subject forced her, for
however SllOlI llhc, W opSii iiCi SySo oAA
| what she did not wish to see; and it had
| invariably ended in another disappointment.
So now again, at the mere wind of its COM
| ing, at the mere mention of his fathers
name-who might seem indeed to have ac-
companied them in their whole moorland
courtship, an awful figure in a wig with an
ironical and bitter smile, present to guilty
consciousness-she fled from it head down.
t11l 1,o c,i6 rbr
was it spoke?"
"Your aunt for one," said Archie.
"Auntie Kirstie?" she cried. "And what
do care for my Auntie Kirstie?"
"she cares a great deal for her niece, "
replied Archie in kind reproof.
"Troth, and it's the first I've heard of it,"
retorted the girl.
1.-THE question here is not who it is, but
what they say, what they have noticed,
pursued the lucid schoolmaster. THAT is
what we have to think of in elf-defence." "
"Auntie Kirstie indeed! bitter thrawn
auld maid that's fomented trouble in the
country before was born, and will be do
ing't still, I daur say, when I'm dead! It's
in her nature; it's as natural for her as it's
for a sheep to eat"
Pardon me, Kirstie, she was not the only
| one," interposed Archie. II had two warm
| ings, two sermons, last night, both most
kind and considerate. Had you been there,
I promise you, you would have graf, my
dear! And they opened my eyes. / saw
we were going a wrong way"
"Who was the other one?" Kirstie de-
manded.
| BY this time Archie was in the condition
| of a hunted beast. He had come. braced
J and resc,,...e; he was tc tia-e O.. ! LIE Of