country town of small dimensions. The house exactly opposite was an old one, with a projecting gable and outside stair, washed with a warm yellow, such as the instincts of an earlier age found desirable, and with excellent effect, in a climate never too brilliant. There were two or three of these old houses about, which gave a quiet brightness to the grey stone and blue slate which, alas, were in the majority. The road was partly causewayed and partly in a state of nature—and mud: though the dryness of the weather about which everybody remarked, though it had not especially struck the stranger, had kept this in check. A handful of hay dropped here and there, a few stalks of straw or other litter, gave a careless look to the place, which otherwise was not disorderly. The little stone houses, with the blue-slated roofs, had a look of comfort. It was not half so pretty, but it was a great deal more well-off than many villages the stranger knew, and he recognized the difference. He could scarcely, by craning his neck, get a glimpse from his window of the river, which, with one or two rare bits of meadow on its bank, disappeared immediately below underwoods and over-hanging cliffs.

The room from which Lewis Grantley made these observations was immediately above the front-door, where he had stood so long, with amused astonishment, watching the leisurely proceedings of his hosts, downstairs. It was an old-fashioned parlour, with a red and green carpet on the floor, a red and blue cover on the table, furniture of mahogany and black haircloth, and a large sideboard like a catafalque. A slight mustiness, as of a place long shut up, was in the air, but this was counteracted by a huge bouquet of hawthorn thrust into a large jug which stood upon the sideboard. The blossom of the thorn is not May in Scotland: were it to take the name of a month, it would be June. There was not much refinement in the manner of this decoration, but it was fresh and fragrant; and the windows were open, and the "caller trout," for which Mrs. Janet had pledged herself, cooked as fish can only be cooked when it is newly out of the water, was on the table, along with the tea, "masked" to Janet's own taste, black and bitter, but with a jug of mollifying cream by the side of it, "baps" and "scones," by no means to be despised, and sweet butter, free from any suspicion of salt, furnished forth the table. Grantley did not disdain these dainties. He made an excellent breakfast; and everything was so fresh and new to him, that to look out of the window was enough to amuse him, and the absence of a newspaper, and of various other accompaniments of breakfast in town, did not disturb his comfort in the least. Grantley did not know anything about town indeed, and had no regrets when he found himself in the silent atmosphere of this strange little place. He had a very serious purpose in coming, but apart from that it was pleasant enough to see new sights, and breathe an air to which he was unaccustomed.

His upbringing had been of a curious kind. He was the son of English parents, born (let us say for the sake of brevity, and according to the fashion of our country) "abroad," which may, of course, be anywhere, from one side of the world to the other: but was, in the present case, on the European continent, and amidst the highest civilization. He had grown up there rather in the subjection and quiescence of a French boy during his school-time, than in the freedom of an English one, and at seventeen had been left orphaned and penniless amid people who were very kind to him, but who did not know what to do with the desolate boy. It was at this crisis, in his mourning clothes, his eyes dim with watching and weeping, that he attracted the attention of a desolate old Englishman, wandering vaguely about the world, as it seemed, with nothing to interest or attract him. It is not necessary to be good in order to be kind, and old Sir Patrick Murray, though he had cast off his own family, and cared nothing for his flesh and blood, was not without a capacity of love in him, and was as desolate in his old age as any orphan could be in his youth. He was appealed to, as being an Englishman, in favour of the child of the English pair who were dead. They were not of exalted condition; the father was a clerk in the Vice-Consul's office, the mother had come "abroad" as a nursery governess, no more. Their child spoke English badly, and though he was furious in defence of his nationality, knew nothing about the habits of his race, and had never been in England in his life. Sir Patrick took him as he might have taken a puppy in the same desolate circumstances. The lad was about his house for a month or two, reading for him, arranging his papers, fulfilling offices which were only "not menial," as the advertisements say. He was browner than an English lad, and more domestic, with no pressure upon him of games to be played or athletic duties to fulfil, and perhaps more soft in his manner, with warmer demonstrations of gratitude and youthful enthusiasm for his benefactor than an English youth could have shown. By degrees he got into the old man's heart. They left the place of young Grantley's birth, and thus cut all the ties he had of human association. There were some relatives at home he had never seen, and one of them had written to say that his sister's son should not want while he had anything, and that the boy "of course" must come to him; but none of the others took any notice, and even this open-hearted person was evidently very glad and relieved in no small degree when he was informed that a rich old Englishman had taken his nephew up.

"I hope you will do nothing to forfeit his kindness," this uncle wrote, "for, though you should have come to us and welcome had you been destitute, we are poor people, and it is far better that you should have to depend on yourself."

This was all Lewis had in the world out of old Sir Patrick's favour, but that favour was bestowed upon him all the more liberally that he had nobody, just as the old man declared he had nobody, to care for him.

"We'll stand by each other," Sir Patrick said. And no doubt there is a standing ground upon which old age and youth can meet which is wanting when one of the two involved is an old man and the other a middle-aged one. Sir Patrick scarcely remembered his son, who had been away from him by far the greater part of his life, and had shown very clearly, when they met, that a man of fifty is on too great an equality with another man of seventy-five to leave much room for filial feeling. The general thought his father (frankly) an old bore, and could not forgive him for that ridiculous palace, the new Murkley, which Sir Patrick had built in his youth. But to Lewis Grantley his noble patron was no old bore, but the most gracious of gentlemen and the kindest of fathers. The lad looked up to him with a kind of adoration. What did he know about the Scotch relations? and, if he had known, he would not have cared. It seemed natural to him that a man should know nothing about his relations. It was his own case.

They travelled about everywhere, the old man and the young one, the tie between them growing closer every day. When Sir Patrick got too weak to travel, Lewis nursed and served him like the most devoted of sons. It was only when a letter came with prodigious black borders, about a year before Sir Patrick's death, announcing that of General Murray, that the young fellow became aware that his old friend had a son. But except that a dinner-party was put off, and a hatband put on, no other notice was taken of the loss, and it faded out of the favourite's mind as a matter of no importance either to himself or any one else. When Sir Patrick died, Lewis mourned as sincerely as ever child mourned a parent, and was as much startled to find himself the master of a large fortune, left to him by this second father, as if he had been seventeen instead of twenty-five; for all this time, eight long years, had passed since his adoption by the kind old man to whose service he had devoted himself with an