LITMIR.BIZ

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her down upon his knees, but she resisted.

      “I don’t see what difference that can make in you all at once, Isy! We’ve known each other so long that there can be no misunderstanding of any sort between us. You have always behaved like the good and modest girl you are; and I’m sure you have been most attentive to me all the time I have been in your aunt’s house.”

      He spoke in a tone of superior approval.

      “It was my bare duty, and ye hae aye been kinder to me than I could hae had ony richt to expec’. But it’s nearhan’ ower noo!” she concluded with a sigh that indicated approaching tears, as she yielded a little to the increased pressure of his arm.

      “What makes you say that?” he returned, giving her a warm kiss, plainly neither unwelcome nor the first.

      “Dinna ye think it would be better to drop that kin’ o’ thing the noo, sir?” she said, and would have stood erect, but he held her fast.

      “Why now, more than any time—I don’t know for how long? Where does a difference come in? What puts the notion in your pretty little head?”

      “It maun come some day, and the langer the harder it’ll be!”

      “But tell me what has set you thinking about it all at once?”

      She burst into tears. He tried to soothe and comfort her, but in struggling not to cry she only sobbed the worse. At last, however, she succeeded in faltering out an explanation.

      “Auntie’s been tellin me that I maun luik to my hert, so as no to tyne’t to ye a’thegither! But it’s awa a’ready,” she went on, with a fresh outburst, “and it’s no manner o’ use cryin til’t to come back to me. I micht as weel cry upo’ the win’ as it blaws by me! I canna understan’ ‘t! I ken weel ye’ll soon be a great man, and a’ the toon crushin to hear ye; and I ken jist as weel that I’ll hae to sit still in my seat and luik up to ye whaur ye stan’, no daurin to say a word—no daurin even to think a thoucht lest somebody sittin aside me should hear’t ohn me spoken. For what would it be but clean impidence o’ me to think ‘at there was a time when I was sittin whaur I’m sittin the noo—and thinkin ‘t i’ the vera kirk! I would be nearhan’ deein for shame!”

      “Didn’t you ever think, Isy, that maybe I might marry you some day?” said James jokingly, confident in the gulf between them.

      “Na, no ance. I kenned better nor that! I never even wusst it, for that would be nae freen’s wuss: ye would never get ony farther gien ye did! I’m nane fit for a minister’s wife—nor worthy o’ bein ane! I micht do no that ill, and pass middlin weel, in a sma’ clachan wi’ a wee bit kirkie—but amang gran’ fowk, in a muckle toon—for that’s whaur ye’re sure to be! Eh me, me! A’ the last week or twa I hae seen ye driftin awa frae me, oot and oot to the great sea, whaur never a thoucht o’ Isy would come nigh ye again;—and what for should there? Ye camna into the warl’ to think aboot me or the likes o’ me, but to be a great preacher, and lea’ me ahin ye, like a sheaf o’ corn ye had jist cuttit and left unbun’!”

      Here came another burst of bitter weeping, followed by words whose very articulation was a succession of sobs.

      “Eh, me, me! I doobt I hae clean disgraced mysel!” she cried at last, and ended, wiping her eyes—in vain, for the tears would keep flowing.

      As to young Blatherwick, I venture to assert that nothing vulgar or low, still less of evil intent, was passing through his mind during this confession; and yet what but evil was his unpitying, selfish exultation in the fact that this simple-hearted and very pretty girl should love him unsought, and had told him so unasked? A true-hearted man would at once have perceived and shrunk from what he was bringing upon her: James’s vanity only made him think it very natural, and more than excusable in her; and while his ambition made him imagine himself so much her superior as to exclude the least thought of marrying her, it did not prevent him from yielding to the delight her confession caused him, or from persuading her that there was no harm in loving one to whom she must always be dear, whatever his future might bring with it. Isy left the room not a little consoled, and with a new hope in possession of her innocent imagination; leaving James exultant over his conquest, and indulging a more definite pleasure than hitherto in the person and devotion of the girl. As to any consciousness in him of danger to either of them, it was no more than, on the shore, the uneasy stir of a storm far out at sea. Had the least thought of wronging her invaded his mind, he would have turned from it with abhorrence; yet was he endangering all her peace without giving it one reasonable thought. He was acting with a selfishness too much ingrained to manifest its own unlovely shape; while in his mind lay all the time a half-conscious care to avoid making the girl any promise.

      As to her fitness for a minister’s wife, he had never asked himself a question concerning it; but in truth she might very soon have grown far fitter for the position than he was for that of a minister. In character she was much beyond him; and in breeding and consciousness far more of a lady than he of a gentleman—fine gentleman as he would fain know himself. Her manners were immeasurably better than his, because they were simple and aimed at nothing. Instinctively she avoided whatever, had she done it, she would at once have recognized as uncomely. She did not know that simplicity was the purest breeding, yet from mere truth of nature practised it unknowing. If her words were older-fashioned, that is more provincial than his, at least her tone was less so, and her utterance was prettier than if, like him, she had aped an Anglicized mode of speech. James would, I am sure, have admired her more if she had been dressed on Sundays in something more showy than a simple cotton gown; and I fear that her poverty had its influence in the freedoms he allowed himself with her.

      Her aunt was a weak as well as unsuspicious woman, who had known better days, and pitied herself because they were past and gone. She gave herself no anxiety as to her niece’s prudence, but continued well assured of it even while her very goodness was conspiring against her safety. It would have required a man, not merely of greater goodness than James, but of greater insight into the realities of life as well, to perceive the worth and superiority of the girl who waited upon him with a devotion far more angelic than servile; for whatever might have seemed to savour of the latter, had love, hopeless of personal advantage, at the root of it.

      Thus things went on for a while, with a continuous strengthening of the pleasant yet not altogether easy bonds in which Isobel walked, and a constant increase of the attraction that drew the student to the self-yielding girl; until the appearance of another lodger in the house was the means of opening Blatherwick’s eyes to the state of his own feelings, by occasioning the birth and recognition of a not unnatural jealousy, which “gave him pause.” On Isy’s side there was not the least occasion for this jealousy, and he knew it; but not the less he saw that, if he did not mean to go further, here he must stop—the immediate result of which was that he began to change a little in his behaviour toward her, when at any time she had to enter his room in ministration to his wants.

      Of this change the poor girl was at once aware, but she attributed it to a temporary absorption in his studies. Soon, however, she could not doubt that not merely was his voice or his countenance changed toward her, but that his heart had grown cold, and that he was no longer “friends with her.” For there was another and viler element than mere jealousy concerned in his alteration: he had become aware of a more real danger into which he was rapidly drifting—that of irrecoverably blasting the very dawn of his prospects by an imprudent marriage. “To saddle himself with a wife,” as he vulgarily expressed it, before he had gained his license—before even he had had the poorest opportunity of distinguishing himself in that wherein lay his every hope and ambition of proving his excellence, was a thing not for a moment to be contemplated! And now, when Isobel asked him in sorrowful mood some indifferent question, the uneasy knowledge that he was about to increase her sadness made him answer her roughly—a form not unnatural to incipient compunction: white as a ghost she stood a moment silently staring at him, then sank on the floor senseless.

      Seized with an overmastering repentance that brought back with a rush all his tenderness, James sprang to her, lifted her in his arms, laid her on the sofa, and lavished caresses upon her, until at length she recovered sufficiently to know where she lay—in the false paradise of his arms, with him kneeling

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