memories whirling through my brain. I mixed this that I had just
seen--with something very like it in the long, long past--with the crash
of pots, and another figure that had thrown itself into Paul's arms.
There was the old room: _Janet_ had been said there, too; and the lips
through which the word had trembled were the same: and the voice was the
same also. Only the figure that had darted forward--was different.

I did not go to bed at all that night; but sat looking out over the
quiet, moon-lit garden and over the fields beyond, where the corn-crake
was calling, calling; the river slipping like a silver thread at the
far-away end of them; and patter, patter out and into the back-garden at
Glasgow went the little feet again; and to and fro ran the fair-haired
little lassie in the dirty pink cotton, tugging me this way and that by
the hand; and such a singing and swinging went on about the stairs. Oh,
how I wondered whether Paul would ever tell Janet her mother's story.

I was not going placidly away north _this_ time, to wait to hear more
about anything by-and-by. I did not leave that factory-like erection of
Duncan's until I had seen them married.




THE CHURCH GARDEN.


"We cannot," said the people, "stand these children,
Always round us with their racketing and play;
Yon Church-garden set right down among our houses
Is really quite a nuisance in its way!