So. odious to her; but she was a welllooking woman, and not an ignorant one, knowing something of the world; and Robert, with his big beard and his rough clothes, had given Mrs Ogilvy the profoundly humiliating consciousness that he had ceased to look like a gentleman; but the woman did not think The woman made her little coquettish advances to him as if he had been a prince. This was how his mother interpreted her visitor's looks she thought no better of her for this, but yet the sensation was soothing, and raised her spirits,even though she scorned the woman for it, and her son for the hesitating smile which after a moment began to light up his face. "However," said the lady, hurriedly, "unless you wish for the minister on my heels, perhaps I had better go now. No? you will not be persuaded, indeed You are more hard-hearted than I expected. So then there is nothing for it but that I must do it myself. There, Mr Ogilvy! see we have secrets after mysteries! Two women can't meet together, can they, without having something tremendous, some conspiracy or other, for each other's ears?" wards the gate; while Mrs Ogilvy "Oh, she seemed to expect it, and it was only civil. Where has she come from? and how did you pick such a person up?" "She is a person that will soon be a neighbour, as you say, and a person of importance here. She is going to be married upon the minister, Robbie." "The minister!" he gave a low whistle-"that will be a curious You couple; but I hope it's a new minall-ister, and not poor old Logan, whom I-whom I remember so well. I've seen women like that, but not among ministers. I almost think I've seen her somewhere. Old Logan! "I did not say so," said Robert, not unresponsive, though taken by surprise. "Oh no, you did not say so; but you were thinking so all the same. They always do, don't they? Gentlemen have such fixed ideas about women. She had overcome her little tremor, but was more coquettish than ever. While she held his mother's hand in hers, she held up a forefinger of the other archly at Robert. "Oh, I've had a great deal of experience. I know what to expect from men." She led him out after her to the door talking thus, and down to But he has a wife," Robert said. "He had one; but she's been dead these ten years, and this lady is new come to the parish, and he has what you call fallen in love with her. There are no fules like old fules, Robbie. I like little to hear of falling in love at that age." "Old Logan!" said Robert again. There were thoughts in his eyes which seemed to come to sudden life, but which his mother did not dare investigate too closely. She dreaded to awaken them further; she feared to drive them away. What memories did the name of Logan bring? or were there any of sufficient force to keep him musing, as he seemed to do, for a few minutes after. But at the end of that time he burst into a sudden laugh. "Old Logan!" he said; "poor old fellow! I remember him very well. The model of a Scotch minister, steadygoing, but pawky too, and some fun in him. Where has he picked up a woman like that? and what will he do with her when he has got her? I have seen the like of her before." 66 But, Robbie, she is just a very personable, well-put-on woman, and well-looking, and no ill-mannered. She is not one I like,—but I am maybe prejudiced, considering the changes she will make; and there is no harm in her, so far as we have ever heard here." "Oh, very likely there is no harm in her; but what has she to do in a place like this? and with old Logan!" He laughed again, and then, growing suddenly grave, asked, "What changes is she going to make?" "There are always changes," said Mrs Ogilvy, evasively, "when a man marries that has a family, and everything settled on another foundation. They are perhaps more in a woman's eyes than in a man's; I will tell you about that another time. But you that wanted to be private, Robbie-there will be no more of that, I'm thinking, now." "Well, it cannot be helped," he said, crossly; "what could I do? Could I refuse to answer her? Private !-how can you be private in a place like this, where every "I never thought we could keep it to ourselves-and why should we?" his mother said. He answered with a sort of snort only, which expressed nothing, and then fell a-musing, stretched out in the big chair, his legs half away across the room, his beard filling up all the rest of the space. His mother looked at him with mingled sensations of pride and humiliation-a half-admiration and a half-shame. He was a big buirdly man, as Janet said; and he had his new clothes, which were at least clean and fresh : but they had not made any transformation in his appearance, as she had hoped. Was there any look of a gentleman left in that large bulk of a man? The involuntary question went cold to Mrs Ogilvy's heart. It still gave her a faint elation, however, to remember that Mrs Ainslie had quite changed her aspect at the sight of him, quite acknowledged him as one of the persons whom it was her mission in the world to attract. It was a small comfort, and yet it was a comfort. She took up her stocking and composed herself to wait his pleasure, till he should have finished his thoughts, whatever they were, and be disposed to talk again. But when his voice came finally out of his beard and out of the silence, it was with a startling question: "What do you mean to do with me, mother, now I am here?" CHAPTER XI. They sat and looked at each other across the little area of the peaceful room. He, stretching half across it, too big almost for the little place. She, in her white shawl and her white cap, its natural occupant and mistress. Her stocking had dropped into her lap, and she looked at him with a pathos and wistfulness in her eyes which were scarcely concealed by the anxious smile which she turned upon him. They were not equal in anything, in this less than in other particulars- for he was indifferent, asking her the question without much care for the answer, while she was moved to her fingerends with anxiety on the subject, thrilling with emotion and fear. She looked at him for her inspiration, to endeavour to read in his eyes what answer would suit him best, what she could say to follow his mood, to please him or to guide him as might be. Mrs Ogilvy had not many experiences that were encouraging. She had little confidence in her power to influence and to lead. If she could know what he would like her to say, that would be something. She had in her heart a feeling which, though very quiet, was in reality despair. She did not know what to do with him - she had no hope that it would matter anything what she wanted to do. He would do what he liked, what he chose, and not anything she could say. "My dear," she said, "when this calamity is overpast, and you have got settled a little, there will be plenty of things that you could do." "That's very doubtful," he said; 66 and you have not much faith in it yourself. I've been used to do nothing. I don't know what work is like. Do you think I'm fit for it? I had to work on board ship, and how I hated it words could never tell. I was too much of a duffer, they said, to do seaman's work. They made me help the cook-fancy, your son helping the cook!" "It is quite honest work," she said, with a little quiver in her voice-" quite honest work." He laughed a little. "That's like you," he said; "and now you will want me to do more honest work. I will need to, I suppose.' "" He paused here, and gave her a keen look, which, fortunately, she did not understand. "But the thing is, I'm good for nothing. I cannot dig, and to beg I am ashamed. I've done many things, but I've not worked much all my life. I will be left on your hands-and what will you do with me?" He was not so indifferent, after all, as when he began. He was almost in earnest, keeping his eye upon her, to read her face as well as her words. But somehow she, who was so anxious to divine him, to discover what he wished her to say-she had no notion, notwithstanding all her anxiety, what it was he desired to know. "But suppose there is nothing I would like- and I was just on your hands a helpless lump "I will suppose no such thing," she said, with the tears coming to her eyes; why should I suppose that of my son? No, no! no, no! You are young yet, and in all your strength, the Lord be praised! You might have come back to me with the life crushed out of you, like Willie Miller; or worn with that weary India, and the heat and the work, like Mrs Allender's son in the Glen. But you, Robbie-——” "What would you have done with me," he repeated, insisting, though with a half-smile on his face, "if it had been as bad as that-if I had come to you like them?" Why should we think of that that is not, nor is like to be? Oh! my dear, I would have done the best I could with a sore heart. I would just have done my best, and pinched a little and scraped a little, and put forth my little skill to make you comfortable on what there was. quiries, but even now had not penetrated his meaning. He wanted more distinct information than he had got. Her gentle ease of living, her readiness to supply his wants, to forestall them even the luxury, as it seemed to him after his wild and wandering career, of the longsettled house, the carefully kept gardens, the little carriage, all the modest abundance of the humble establishment, had surprised him. He had believed that his mother was all but poor-not in want of anything essential to comfort, but yet very careful about her expenditure, and certainly not allowing him in the days of his youth, as he had often reflected with bitterness, the indulShe was a little surprised by gences to which, if she had been as what he said, but did not yet at- well off as she seemed now, he tach any very serious meaning to it. would have had, he thought, a "I am better off," she said, "than right. What had she now? Had when you went away. Some things she grown rich? Was there plenty that I've been mixed up in have for him after her, enough to exempt done very well, so they tell me. I him from that necessity of working, never have spent what came in like which he had always feared and that. I have saved it all up for you, hated? It was, perhaps, not unRobbie." reasonable that he should wish to know. "You have every air of being very comfortable yourself," he said, looking round the room. "I thought so when I came first. You are like the man in the proverb-the parable, I mean-whose very servants had enough and to spare, while his son perished with hunger." "Not for me, mother," he said; "to please yourself with the thought that there was more money in the bank." Robbie," she said, "you cannot be thinking what you are saying. That was never my character. There is nobody that does not try to save for their bairns. I have saved for you, when I knew not where you were, nor if I would ever see you more. The money in the bank was never what I was thinking of. There would be enough to give you, perhaps, a good beginning-whatever you might settle to do." "Set me up in business, in fact," he said, with a laugh. "That is what would please you best." "The thing that would please me best would be what was the best for you," she said, with self-restraint. She was a little wounded by his in pounds to buy my clothes, and a few shillings to get my tobacco and a daily paper, now that the Scots man' comes out daily—and some wretched old library of novels, where I can change my books three or four times a-week: and that's how Rob Ogilvy will end, that was once a terror in his way-no, it was never I that was the terror, but those I was with," he added, in an undertone. Mrs Ogilvy's heart was wrung with that keen anguish of helplessness which is as the bitterness of death to those who can do nothing to help or deliver those they love. "Oh, my dear, my dear," she said, "why should that be so? It is all yours whatever is mine. It's not a fortune, but you shall be no dependent-you shall have your own: and better thoughts will come-and you will want more than a library of foolish books or a daily paper. You will want your own honest life, like them that went before you, and your place in the world-and oh, Robbie! God grant it! a good wife and a family of your own.' He got up and walked about, with large steps that made the boards creak, and with the laugh which she liked least of all his utterances. "No, mother, that will never be," he said. "I'm not one to be caught like that. You will not find me putting myself in prison and rolling the stone to the mouth of the cave.' "Robbie!" she cried, with a sense of something profane in what he said, though she could scarcely have told what. But the conversation was interrupted here by Janet coming to announce the early dinner, to which Robert as usual did the fullest justice. Whatever he might have done or said to shock her, the sight of his abundant meal always brought Mrs Ogilvy's mind, more or less, back to a certain contentment, a sort of approval. He was not too particular nor dainty about his food: he never gave himself airs, as if it were not good enough, nor looked contemptuous of Janet's good dishes, as a man who has been for years away from home so often does. He ate heartily, innocently, like one who had nothing on his conscience, a good digestion, and a clean record. It was not credible even that a man who ate his dinner like that should not be one who would work as well as eat, and earn his meal with pleasure. It uplifted her heart a little, and eased it, only to see him eat. Afterwards it could scarcely be said that the conversation was resumed; but that day he was in a mood for talk. He told her scraps of his adventures, sitting with the 'Scotsman' in his hand, which he did not read-taking pleasure in frightening her, she thought; but yet, after leading her to a point of breathless interest, breaking off with a half-jest "It was not me, it was him." She got used to this conclusion, and almost to feel as if this man unknown, who was always in her son's mind, was in a manner the soul of Robert's large passive body, moving that at his will. Then her son returned with a sudden spring to the visitor of the morning, and to poor old Logan and the strangeness of his fate. "She's like a woman I once saw out yonder "-with a jerk of his thumb over his shouldersinger, or something of that sort, -a woman that was up to anything." "Don't say that, my dear, of a woman that will soon be the minister's wife." "The minister's wife!" he said, with a great explosion of laughter. And then he grew suddenly grave. "Old Logan," he said, with a sort |