the cleft of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz and the pale
florets of primrose fascinated him. He saw the breasts heave, and the

flowers shake with the heaving, and marvelled what should so much
discompose the girl. And Christina was conscious of his gaze - saw it,

perhaps, with the daintyplaything of an ear that peeped among her
ringlets; she was conscious of changing colour, conscious of her

unsteady breath. Like a creature tracked, run down, surrounded, she
sought in a dozen ways to give herself a countenance. She used her

handkerchief - it was a really fine one - then she desisted in a panic:
"He would only think I was too warm." She took to reading in the

metrical psalms, and then remembered it was sermon-time. Last she put a
"sugar-bool" in her mouth, and the next moment repented of the step. It

was such a homely-like thing! Mr. Archie would never be eating sweeties
in kirk; and, with a palpable effort, she swallowed it whole, and her

colour flamed high. At this signal of distress Archie awoke to a sense
of his ill-behaviour. What had he been doing? He had been exquisitely

rude in church to the niece of his housekeeper; he had stared like a
lackey and a libertine at a beautiful and modest girl. It was possible,

it was even likely, he would be presented to her after service in the
kirk-yard, and then how was he to look? And there was no excuse. He

had marked the tokens of her shame, of her increasing indignation, and
he was such a fool that he had not understood them. Shame bowed him

down, and he looked resolutely at Mr. Torrance; who little supposed,
good, worthy man, as he continued to expound justification by faith,

what was his true business: to play the part of derivative to a pair of
children at the old game of falling in love.

Christina was greatly relieved at first. It seemed to her that she was
clothed again. She looked back on what had passed. All would have been

right if she had not blushed, a silly fool! There was nothing to blush
at, if she HAD taken a sugar-bool. Mrs. MacTaggart, the elder's wife in

St. Enoch's, took them often. And if he had looked at her, what was
more natural than that a young gentleman should look at the best-dressed

girl in church? And at the same time, she knew far otherwise, she knew
there was nothing casual or ordinary in the look, and valued herself on

its memory like a decoration. Well, it was a blessing he had found
something else to look at! And presently she began to have other

thoughts. It was necessary, she fancied, that she should put herself
right by a repetition of the incident, better managed. If the wish was

father to the thought, she did not know or she would not recognise it.
It was simply as a manoeuvre of propriety, as something called for to

lessen the significance of what had gone before, that she should a
second time meet his eyes, and this time without blushing. And at the

memory of the blush, she blushed again, and became one general blush
burning from head to foot. Was ever anything so indelicate, so forward,

done by a girl before? And here she was, making an exhibition of
herself before the congregation about nothing! She stole a glance upon

her neighbours, and behold! they were steadilyindifferent, and Clem had
gone to sleep. And still the one idea was becoming more and more potent

with her, that in common prudence she must look again before the service
ended. Something of the same sort was going forward in the mind of

Archie, as he struggled with the load of penitence. So it chanced that,
in the flutter of the moment when the last psalm was given out, and

Torrance was reading the verse, and the leaves of every psalm-book in
church were rustling under busy fingers, two stealthy glances were sent

out like antennae among the pews and on the indifferent and absorbed
occupants, and drew timidly nearer to the straight line between Archie

and Christina. They met, they lingered together for the least fraction
of time, and that was enough. A charge as of electricity passed through

Christina, and behold! the leaf of her psalm-book was torn across.
Archie was outside by the gate of the graveyard, conversing with Hob and

the minister and shaking hands all round with the scattering
congregation, when Clem and Christina were brought up to be presented.

The laird took off his hat and bowed to her with grace and respect.
Christina made her Glasgow curtsey to the laird, and went on again up

the road for Hermiston and Cauldstaneslap, walking fast, breathing
hurriedly with a heightened colour, and in this strange frame of mind,

that when she was alone she seemed in high happiness, and when any one
addressed her she resented it like a contradiction. A part of the way

she had the company of some neighbour girls and a loutish young man;
never had they seemed so insipid, never had she made herself so

disagreeable. But these struck aside to their various destinations or
were out-walked and left behind; and when she had driven off with sharp

words the proffered convoy of some of her nephews and nieces, she was
free to go on alone up Hermiston brae, walking on air, dwelling

intoxicated among clouds of happiness. Near to the summit she heard
steps behind her, a man's steps, light and very rapid. She knew the

foot at once and walked the faster. "If it's me he's wanting, he can
run for it," she thought, smiling.

Archie overtook her like a man whose mind was made up.
"Miss Kirstie," he began.

"Miss Christina, if you please, Mr. Weir," she interrupted. "I canna
bear the contraction."

"You forget it has a friendly sound for me. Your aunt is an old friend
of mine, and a very good one. I hope we shall see much of you at

Hermiston?"
"My aunt and my sister-in-law doesna agree very well. Not that I have

much ado with it. But still when I'm stopping in the house, if I was to
be visiting my aunt, it would not look considerate-like."

"I am sorry," said Archie.
"I thank you kindly, Mr. Weir," she said. "I whiles think myself it's a

great peety."
"Ah, I am sure your voice would always be for peace!" he cried.

"I wouldna be too sure of that," she said. "I have my days like other
folk, I suppose."

"Do you know, in our old kirk, among our good old grey dames, you made
an effect like sunshine."

"Ah, but that would be my Glasgow clothes!"
"I did not think I was so much under the influence of pretty frocks."

She smiled with a half look at him. "There's more than you!" she said.
"But you see I'm only Cinderella. I'll have to put all these things by

in my trunk; next Sunday I'll be as grey as the rest. They're Glasgow
clothes, you see, and it would never do to make a practice of it. It

would seem terrible conspicuous."
By that they were come to the place where their ways severed. The old

grey moors were all about them; in the midst a few sheep wandered; and
they could see on the one hand the straggling caravan scaling the braes

in front of them for Cauldstaneslap, and on the other, the contingent
from Hermiston bending off and beginning to disappear by detachments

into the policy gate. It was in these circumstances that they turned to
say farewell, and deliberately exchanged a glance as they shook hands.

All passed as it should, genteelly; and in Christina's mind, as she
mounted the first steep ascent for Cauldstaneslap, a gratifying sense of

triumph prevailed over the recollection of minor lapses and mistakes.
She had kilted her gown, as she did usually at that rugged pass; but

when she spied Archie still standing and gazing after her, the skirts
came down again as if by enchantment. Here was a piece of nicety for

that uplandparish, where the matrons marched with their coats kilted in
the rain, and the lasses walked barefoot to kirk through the dust of

summer, and went bravely down by the burn-side, and sat on stones to
make a public toilet before entering! It was perhaps an air wafted from

Glasgow; or perhaps it marked a stage of that dizziness of gratified
vanity, in which the instinctive act passed unperceived. He was looking

after! She unloaded her bosom of a prodigious sigh that was all
pleasure, and betook herself to run. When she had overtaken the

stragglers of her family, she caught up the niece whom she had so
recently repulsed, and kissed and slapped her, and drove her away again,

and ran after her with pretty cries and laughter. Perhaps she thought
the laird might still be looking! But it chanced the little scene came

under the view of eyes less favourable; for she overtook Mrs. Hob
marching with Clem and Dand.

"You're shurely fey, lass!" quoth Dandie.
"Think shame to yersel', miss!" said the strident Mrs. Hob. "Is this

the gait to guide yersel' on the way hame frae kirk? You're shiirely
no sponsible the day! And anyway I would mind my guid claes."

"Hoot!" said Christina, and went on before them head in air, treading
the rough track with the tread of a wild doe.