XLII. Margaret, the Precentor, and God between
XLIII. Rain--Mist--The Jaws
XLIV. End of the Twenty-four Hours
XLV. Talk of a Little Maid since Grown Tall




CHAPTER I.

THE LOVE-LIGHT.


Long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's
soldier without whistling impudently, "Come ower the water to
Charlie," a minister of Thrums was to be married, but something
happened, and he remained a bachelor. Then, when he was old, he
passed in our square the lady who was to have been his wife, and
her hair was white, but she, too, was still unmarried. The meeting
had only one witness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards,
"They didna speak, but they just gave one another a look, and I
saw the love-light in their een." No more is remembered of these
two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in
the soul of a battered weaver makes them human to us for ever.

It is of another minister I am to tell, but only to those who know
that light when they see it. I am not bidding good-bye to many
readers, for though it is true that some men, of whom Lord Rintoul
was one, live to an old age without knowing love, few of us can
have met them, and of women so incomplete I never heard.