For the first time since I was a boy, Betty had to waken me this morning. As a rule I lie for half-an-hour before getting up, allowing my mind to simmer over the events of the previous day, and planning how best I may spend the coming forenoon and afternoon. I had no need to make out any programme for to-day, however, as I had that all arranged last night.  
I dressed hurriedly, and after spending a few minutes with Nathan, who, poor man, is abed, I sent off a telegram to Murray Monteith, requesting him to wire on receipt one hundred pounds on Miss Stuart's account to the local bank. When I had breakfasted I wrote him a long letter, and asked him to send me particulars regarding her interests in the Banku Oil Company. Then I went up and arranged with Mr Crichton the banker as to her account.
 
Walking along to the bank, I met Joe on his way down to Betty's. Joe's jacket is always closely buttoned, and he wears his tweed cap on his head at the same angle as he would his glengarry when on parade. His hair is cropped short, the forelock brushed firmly and across his left temple, and showing prominently under the stem of his cap. His trousers are always carefully pressed; consequently they never show a at the knees. He is not so tall as Nathan, nor has he the 'boss' appearance; but I fancied that to-day he had more than usual of the same serious Hebron expression; and when he gave me the , as he always does in true soldierly style, it wasn't accompanied by the customary cheery smile. He passed me at the regulation step, and from the fact that he was carrying a brown-paper bag bearing the name of John Nelson, Fruiterer, I that Betty was an apple-dumpling for dinner.
 
My business with Mr Crichton was soon disposed of; but it took me some considerable time to dispose of Mr Crichton. He has a , affable way with him, a pawky of leaving one subject and starting another; and when he is in a reminiscent mood, as he was this morning, he can be very dreich and very entertaining at one and the same time. Long ago, of an evening, he used to play chess with my father. He took snuff in those days—he takes snuff still, and treats others unstintingly, as Betty will know when my handkerchief goes to the wash—and when my father had him into an awkward position on the board his little silver box was seldom out of his hand. My recollection of him at that period is very , and it is so closely associated with this box that it may be if he hadn't snuffed I shouldn't have remembered him at all. I notice he applies the always to his right , never to the left, and he has a dainty and a stealthy way of conveying the pinch which contrasts strongly with that of Deacon Webster, whose recklessness where snuff is concerned is such that more is distributed on his shirt-front and waistcoat than is into the nasal receptacle. On the other hand, so cleanly and dapper is Mr Crichton that, were it not for the of Kendal brown which ever lingers about him, you wouldn't know he used snuff at all.
 
After a couthie crack, which, in spite of my preoccupation, I enjoyed, I said good-bye and walked out of the bank, only to fall a ready to the blandishments of Douglas the barber, who me into his back-yard to see a cavie of Wyandotte chickens of which, as prize-winners, he had great expectations. Then, in his draughty lobby, I had to listen to an account of his first and only interview with Thomas Carlyle at Holmhill, of his photographing the Chelsea seer and 'snoddin'' his hair; also to a résumé of a lecture on the Ruthwell Cross he had heard delivered by our fellow-villager, Dr Hewison, which pleased him, as he said, 'doon to the nines.' On reaching home I found, to my great disappointment, that Dr Grierson had called and had gone away. I wanted particularly to see the doctor, as I felt he should know that I had taken his advice and unburdened my mind to the lady of my dream.
 
When Betty came in to lay the table for my midday meal I noticed she was not quite herself, and that there was something unusual her mind. As I have said, I always allow her to unburden herself to me in her own way and at her own sweet will; but somehow I intuitively felt that in the present circumstances my rule should not apply.
 
As she moved silently out and in I watched her closely, and when she had finished and out my chair from the table I put my hand on her shoulder. 'Betty,' I said, 'there is a sadness in your eyes to-day I have never noticed before. Is there anything worrying you?'
 
She looked up at me for a moment; then, putting her arms round my neck, she began to cry, quietly but emotionally. 'Oh, it's Nathan, puir falla, an' I'm sairly putten aboot,' she said between her . 'It strikes me he's no' in a very guid wey; an', oh Weelum! if—if ocht tak's Nathan I dinna want to live.'
 
It was the first time for years she had, unasked, called me 'Weelum' without the , and the old familiar way she pronounced it touched a chord in my heart.
 
I let her have her cry out, and then I did my best to her fears. She sat down on my chair, and I drew in another and sat down beside her. 'Nathan's not very well, Betty,' I said; 'but he's always been a healthy enough man, not given to complaining and lying about, and you know you're so accustomed to see him strong and that you are apt to exaggerate anything which him and keeps him in bed. The doctor's not concerned about him to-day, is he?'
 
'I—I dinna for certain. He didna say so to me, but I imagined he looked that wey,' she said. 'Mebbe I read his face wrang. I'm trustin' I did, but—but I see for mysel' that Nathan's far frae weel.'
 
'Yes, Betty, we all know that; but I'm sure there's nothing serious. He's got a bad cold, a very bad chill, the doctor tells me; but with a good rest in bed and careful nursing he'll soon be up and about again.'
 
'I'm dootin' it's mair than a chill, Maister Weelum,' and she shook her head; 'an' it strikes me that Nathan it's something mair serious. He's tryin' no' to let on to me; but the mair he tries the clearer I see it. Ay, him an' me have come to that time o' life when we depend a guid deal on yin anither, an' lately I've noticed that he's been anxious to do mair for me than he's able. We lippen on yin anither in a quiet kind o' a wey, ye ken—never askin' or demandin', but aye expectin', an' aye gettin'. Ay, Maister Weelum, aye gettin' an' aye gi'in', an' it's through this wee peep-hole that Nathan an' me, an' ithers happily married like us, get a wee bit glisk o' a heaven on earth.'
 
I pondered over these words for a moment. 'Betty,' I said, 'that's a beautiful way of putting it.'
 
'Ay, it may be beautiful—it may be, I say, Maister Weelum. I'm no' a judge o' that; but it's true—an' I feel it's true; an' the best wish I can wish ye is that some day my experience in this will be yours.' And she wiped her cheek with her , and smoothed imaginary out of the tablecover with the back of her hand.
 
'And—and, Betty, you must love Nathan very much?'
 
'Yes,' she said , 'I love Nathan; but no' so much as I have reason to, an' no' mair than he deserves.'
 
'And was Nathan the only sweetheart you ever had, Betty?' I suddenly asked.
 
She rose from her chair and turned her face to the window. 'Dear me, Maister Weelum, that's a queer question to ask! What put that into your heid?'
 
'Oh, I don't know, Betty. I've often wondered.'
 
'Ye've often wondered that, have ye? Imphm!' And she sat down again. 'Weel, as the wean I nursed an' the man I'm prood o', ye'll no' be denied an answer. No, Nathan's no' the only sweethe'rt I ever had. I loved anither man before I loved Nathan. I was aboot nineteen year at the time, an' if onybody had telt me then that Robert Frizzel wad never be mine I wad ha'e gane demented. Nineteen's a careless, haveral kind o' an age; but the he'rt can be awfu' glad an' then, an' I must confess I had o' happiness which carried me aff my feet in a wey I couldna understand later. The sun was aye shinin'; the birds were aye whusslin'. I gaed to my bed singin', an' I wakened singin'. Oh, I mind it a' weel. The mistress—your mother—somewey was against it; but I thocht I best, an' mony a sweet bit stolen oor I had up at that same gate at the heid o' the gairden there. He was a nice-lookin' man, was Robert, a bonny singer, an' a great toss amang the lassies, an' to be singled oot frae amang them a' was in my estimation something to be prood o'. Weel, I heard something aboot him no' to his credit—something mean an' dishonourable. Nathan was comin' aboot the gairden even then; an', though he had never said ocht to me, I could see, an'—an' I jaloused, an' it struck me that he wadna ha'e the same. Weel, the first chance I got I asked Robert aboot it, an' he juist laughed an' made licht o't. I telt him I never wanted to speak to him again, an'—an' I gaed to my bed that nicht an' grat the sairest greet I ever had in my life. Ay, I juist put him oot o' my he'rt an' steekit the door. An' then Nathan somewey opened it again, an'——Michty me, Maister Weelum, your broth's stane-cauld!' And, without another word, she lifted the soup-tureen and went ben to the kitchen.
 
I never for a moment suspected Betty of having had a calf-love affair, and her characteristic of the episode was as unexpected as it was interesting. I asked the question which led up to it almost without premeditation, and not so much out of curiosity as from a ............