“I will be glad to go with you, uncle.  I shall be no charge on you.  I can find my own bread if you will just love me a little.”

“I’m no that poor, Jean.  You are welcome to share my loaf.  Put that weary; thimble and needle awa’; I’ll no see you take another stitch.”

So Jean followed her uncle’s advice and went back with him to Glasgow.  He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she expected—­certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least expensive streets of the great city.  It was dark when they reached Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle’s manner as soon as they left the railway.  He made an imperative motion and a carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end.  He led her into a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her “show Miss Anderson her rooms;” and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself surrounded by undreamed of luxury.

Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her life.  His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she discovered that it was largely spent in two directions—­scientific discovery and the Temperance Crusade.  Men whose lives were devoted to chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters.  One of the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her; and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed “to seek till he found, and so not lose his labor.”

Her life was now very happy.  Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece.  Nor did he ever regret the gift.  “Jean entered my house and she made it a home,” he said to his friends.  No words could have better explained the position.  In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light of the midnight sun.  So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was thirty-two years old.  The simple, unlettered girl had then become a woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm.  Wise in many ways, she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her.  “You have made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean,” he said to her on the last solemn night of his life; “and I thank God for the gift o’ your honest love!  Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi’en you every bawbee I have.  I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae dead wishes behind me.  You will do as you like wi’ the land and the siller, and you will do right in a’ things, I ken that, Jean.  If it should come into your heart to tak’ the love Professor Sharp offers you, I’ll be pleased, for he’ll never spend a shilling that willna be weel spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you.  But it is a’ in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that.”