The half-pay of Major Sutherland was gone, of course; and all that remained for Mrs. Sutherland was a small annuity, secured by her husband’s payments to a certain fund for the use of officers’ widows.  From this she could spare but a mere trifle for the completion of Hugh’s university-education; while the salary he had received at Turriepuffit, almost the whole of which he had saved, was so small as to be quite inadequate for the very moderate outlay necessary.  He therefore came to the resolution to write to the laird, and offer, if they were not yet provided with another tutor, to resume his relation to the young gentlemen for the winter.  It was next to impossible to spend money there; and he judged that before the following winter, he should be quite able to meet the expenses of his residence at Aberdeen, during the last session of his course.  He would have preferred trying to find another situation, had it not been that David and Janet and Margaret had made there a home for him.

Whether Mrs. Glasford was altogether pleased at the proposal, I cannot tell; but the laird wrote a very gentlemanlike epistle, condoling with him and his mother upon their loss, and urging the usual common-places of consolation.  The letter ended with a hearty acceptance of Hugh’s offer, and, strange to tell, the unsolicited promise of an increase of salary to the amount of five pounds.  This is another to be added to the many proofs that verisimilitude is not in the least an essential element of verity.

He left his mother as soon as circumstances would permit, and returned to Turriepuffit; an abode for the winter very different indeed from that in which he had expected to spend it.

He reached the place early in the afternoon; received from Mrs. Glasford a cold “I hope you’re well, Mr. Sutherland;” found his pupils actually reading, and had from them a welcome rather boisterously evidenced; told them to get their books; and sat down with them at once to commence their winter labours.  He spent two hours thus; had a hearty shake of the hand from the laird, when he came home; and, after a substantial tea, walked down to David’s cottage, where a welcome awaited him worth returning for.

“Come yer wa’s butt,” said Janet, who met him as he opened the door without any prefatory knock, and caught him with both hands; “I’m blithe to see yer bonny face ance mair.  We’re a’ jist at ane mair wi’ expeckin’ o’ ye.”

David stood in the middle of the floor, waiting for him.

“Come awa’, my bonny lad,” was all his greeting, as he held out a great fatherly hand to the youth, and, grasping his in the one, clapped him on the shoulder with the other, the water standing in his blue eyes the while.  Hugh thought of his own father, and could not restrain his tears.  Margaret gave him a still look full in the face, and, seeing his emotion, did not even approach to offer him any welcome.  She hastened, instead, to place a chair for him as she had done when first he entered the cottage, and when he had taken it sat down at his feet on her creepie.  With true delicacy, no one took any notice of him for some time.  David said at last,