the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to Flanders.  Wilkinson was happy—­happier than he had been for many a long year.  He seemed to have so many friends, and they were all so cordial, so glad to see him—­not a hard man or woman among them; and, therefore, God could not be hard.  He walked with the minister, who was going to dine at Bridesdale and then ride five miles to preach at another station.  He thanked him for his sermon, and talked over it with him, and, of course, quoted “The Excursion":—­

                              If the heart
     Could be inspected to its inmost folds,
     By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
     Who shall be named—­in the resplendent line
     Of sages, martyrs, confessors—­the man
     Whom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,
     For one day’s little compass, has preserved
     From painful and discreditable shocks
     Of contradiction from some vague desire
     Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
     To some unsanctioned fear.

“That’s just all the trouble, Mr. Wilkinson,” said the delighted minister.  “People think to honour and glorify God by being afraid of Him, forgetting that perfect love casts out the fear that hath torment, and he that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

With such conversation they beguiled the way till they stood at the gate of Bridesdale, and entered the hospitable mansion, there to be received by the odious Grinstun man.

“What in aa’ the warld, Marjorie, did Susan mean, sending us yon godless, low-lived chairact o’ a Rawdon?” asked the Squire of his sister, Mrs. Carmichael.

“I cannot understand it, John,” she answered; “for her own Marjorie fairly detests the little man.  Perhaps it is some business affair with the Captain.”

“Aweel, aweel, we maun keep the peace, sin’ I’m a judge o’t; but I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.”

Then they all entered the house together.  Wilkinson found the spurious Miss Du Plessis gone.

The dominie saw that the working geologist was boring Mrs. Carmichael, after her return to the drawing-room from laying aside her walking attire, and valorously interposed to save her.  He enquired for her niece, Marjorie, and learned that that young lady had annexed Coristine as her lawful prey, and, introducing him to her grown-up cousin, had arranged the triangular journey to Mr. Perrowne’s church.  The service there was longer than in the kirk, so that half an hour would probably elapse before the two Anglican perverts appeared with their captive, the lawyer.  Before the absentees made their appearance, a man—­dressed in Mr. Nash’s clothes, but with the beard and moustache recognized by Ben Toner as those of the bailiff—­was ushered in and greeted by the Squire as Mr. Chisholm.  The rest of the company seemed to know the transformed detective, including the Grinstun man, whom he rallied on his attentions to a young lady.