you beautiful and clever; I like your temper; I
have wealth enough for both of us, and I intend
to make you love me."

"More likely you will make me hate you," I
said, fired by the complacence of his manner.
This angered him, and he began to talk in a different
strain. A flush rose on his face, and his
eyes grew uneasy. With many furtive glances from
me to the fire, and from the fire to me, he
contrived to convey to me, in a long speech, which I
would not remember if I could, the history of that
condition which he had made with my father.

When he had done, I got up quickly and
went straight into the dining-room, where my
father was sleeping in his chair.

"Father!" I said, shaking him gently, "is
it true what Luke Elphinstone says, that you
have sold me to him for your mills?"

My father sat up, stared at me, and recollected.
His eye fell before mine.

"Do not put things in such unpleasant words,"
said he. "Luke has turned out a millionnaire.
Any sensible girl would be glad to get him."

"I am not glad," said I; "tell me that he
has said what is not the truth."

"I have promised that you shall marry him."

"But, father, I cannot do it," said I. And
then a great storm of anger broke over my head.
In the midst of it I heard Luke Elphinstone
leave the house, and I called him a coward in my
heart. Such scenes as these had frightened my
mother to death. It was like a thunder-storm,
or anything else that is awful; but I outlived it.
I was so strong in my own desperation that I
hardly seemed to mind it. After it was over, I
got up to leave the room, and I said wildly:

"It is not far to the river. I will get up in
the night, when you are asleep, and drown
myself sooner than marry Luke Elphinstone."

It was the first time I had ever defied him,
and my father was amazed. He called me back,
and trembling and giddy, and hardly knowing
what I did, I went and stood beside him. I
think he thought me capable of doing what I
had threatened. He looked in my face, and his
voice broke when he tried to speak to me. He
bowed his grey head in affliction and supplicated
me to save his name, his occupation, his honour,
before the world. Luke Elphinstone would be
a good husband, he said, and what was a girl's
whim in a lover to the ruin that would fall upon
his old age? He wrought my soul to grief
within me, brought down my spirit, broke my
heart. I wept, and at last my arms were about
his neck, and I was promising to "do what I
could," sobbing that I would "think about it."
And so it came that I was conquered.

"Eh, lass," said Elspie, " but the heart's a
wilfu' thing!" And she put me to bed like a
baby, and crooned me to sleep with her favourite
ballad, "The Mitherless Bairn!"

The next day I was ill; I had caught a fever
which was hanging about the neighbourhood.
I had delirious dreams, in which I seemed to
live long lifetimes, and from which I wakened
quite meek. Elspie kept by my side, and I
knew that Luke and my father were coming
back and forward to my door all the time. I
tried to be thankful that my life was precious.
Lying there in a hushed room, with Elspie
mumbling prayers and scraps of wisdom by my head,
I had very pitiful thoughts about the world.
Life was very short, and the other world very
easy to be reached, and it did not matter much
how or where we accomplished our few years.
I did not want to get well quickly; but the
strength would come back. Luke carried me
down-stairs the first time, and I tried not to
shrink from him. They tended me and petted
me, those two men, and I passively agreed to all
they said and did. Luke showed in his best
light, and I thought I could better endure his
good will than endless quarrelling and resistance.
My likings and dislikings were flattened to much
the same level; the hot side of my nature was
quenched; my enthusiasm had gone out like
sparks. If I had kept in my sound health, I
believe I should have held out to the end; as I
fell sick, I gave way. It seemed that things had
taken a shape as if I were willing to do what
was desired of me. I was but half alive at that
time; and I drifted into compliance. But I
insisted on getting a year—a whole year—at
least, during which to grow accustomed to the
idea of becoming a wife. Of all that was to fall out
in that year I had very little thought. But that
was how I got engaged to Luke Elphinstone.

The immovable ring remained on my finger.
The first night I wore it with my own consent,
I went up to my room dull and weary. What
follows I never told to any one before. A figure
was sitting by my fireside, wrapped in shimmering
white, crowned with flowers like a bride,
the head lowered on the hands in the attitude
of weeping. Elspie only heard my scream, and
found me insensible on the floor. I had heard
my mother's step, but never had she visited me
before. It did not need her visit now to make my
heart sink at thought of the promise I had given.
But Elspie and I kept this matter to ourselves.

The next event in my life was the arrival of
the Hatteraicks at Eldergowan, after an absence
of many years. Mrs. Hatteraick had lived in
Italy, with two little orphan nieces, whilst her
son was serving abroad. Now, Major Mark
was off duty upon furlough; and they all came
home in the early summer. I went to Eldergowan,
and the world changed.

CHAPTER III.

I WENT to Eldergowan, and the world changed.
This was how it happened.

Orchards had bloomed out, and early roses
had blossomed. I was standing on the steps
outside the Mill-house door; Luke Elphinstone
was in London on business, and my father was
at the mill; the door was open, the house within
quiet in its undisturbed shadows. A track of
sunshine went up the stairs, and I could hear
Elspie crooning above.

I turned iny face to the old iron gate over the
burn, and saw a strange lady alighting from a
carriage and moving towards me. She was tall
and stately, and all dressed in black satin, on
her head a quilted hood tied with peach-coloured
ribbons, falling back and showing her cap of rich