At the end of this period Paul advised her to take counsel.  He told her that the law had remedies for losses of deeds; and she accordingly consulted a legal gentleman of the name of Cleghorn.  The result was not favourable.  It appeared that Mr. Ainslie denied that there was any copy or scroll of the will, through the means of which it might have been “set up,” by what is called a proving of the tenor.  There was no hope here, and by-and-by she saw advertised in the Caledonian Mercury that the furniture of the house was to be sold within a week.  She was there on mere tolerance; and now she had got a clear intimation to flit.  As for money or effects, she had none, except her wardrobe, for she never thought of providing for an exigency which she was satisfied never would occur.  Again she applied to Paul, who, with her consent, went and took for her a solitary room in the close we have already mentioned.  It was her intention to acquire a livelihood by means of her needle, at that time almost the only resource for genteel poverty.  Some articles of furniture were got, principally by Paul; and there, two days before the sale, she took up her residence.  Nor did the kindness of Paul stop here.  He attended the sale, and, considerately judging that some articles belonging to her father would be acceptable to her, he purchased, for a small sum, the old bureau of which we have already spoken.  The article was removed to Rachel’s room.

For a period of fifteen years did Rachel Grierson live in that room plying her needle to obtain for her a subsistence.  Her story, which came to be known, procured her plenty of work; and the ten fingers, which were sufficiently employed, sufficed for the wants of the stomach,—­small these wants, probably, in her who had heard of the marriage of Walter with Agnes Ainslie; yea, she who could bear to hear that intelligence might claim a right to be a pupil of Paul’s school of philosophy.  Paul she indeed loved as a friend, but she never could bring herself to the resolution of marrying the little artist.  There was a train of evils:  the “croppings out” of her fate, as Paul called it, were thick enough and to spare; for she fell into bad health, which was the precursor of a fit of palsy, depriving her for ever of the power of working for herself.  Then it was that Paul’s affection was shown more clearly than ever.  Day by day he brought her all the food she required; but at length he himself was taken ill, and his absence was fatal.  Pride prevented her from making her necessity known to the neighbours, with whom she had but little intercourse.  We have told how she was found dead; and when we say that Paul recovered to be present at her funeral, we have only one fact more to state.  It is this:  Paul took the old bureau home to his own little room, to keep as a memorial of the only woman he ever loved.  One day, when repairing the internal drawers, he found in a hollow perpendicular slip, which looked like a broad beading, a document which was thus entitled on the back: