When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was heightened.  It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that morning at the Advocate’s, I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb.  But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan.

“O!” she cried, “you have been seeking your sixpence:  did you get it?”

I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.  “Though I have seen you to-day already,” said I, and told her where and when.

“I did not see you,” she said.  “My eyes are big, but there are better than mine at seeing far.  Only I heard singing in the house.”

“That was Miss Grant,” said I, “the eldest and the bonniest.”

“They say they are all beautiful,” said she.

“They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,” I replied, “and were all crowding to the window to observe you.”

“It is a pity about my being so blind,” said she, “or I might have seen them too.  And you were in the house?  You must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.”

“There is just where you are wrong,” said I; “for I was as uncouth as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain.  The truth is that I am better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.”

“Well, I would think so too, at all events!” said she, at which we both of us laughed.

“It is a strange thing, now,” said I.  “I am not the least afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants.  And I was afraid of your cousin too.”

“O, I think any man will be afraid of her,” she cried.  “My father is afraid of her himself.”

The name of her father brought me to a stop.  I looked at her as she walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like a traitor to be silent.

“Speaking of which,” said I, “I met your father no later than this morning.”

“Did you?” she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me.  “You saw James More?  You will have spoken with him, then?”

“I did even that,” said I.

Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible.  She gave me a look of mere gratitude.  “Ah, thank you for that!” says she.

“You thank me for very little,” said I, and then stopped.  But it seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out.  “I spoke rather ill to him,” said I; “I did not like him very much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry.”

“I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his daughter!” she cried out.  “But those that do not love and cherish him I will not know.”