tears. The prayer ended. Right over him was a tablet in the wall, the

only ornament in the roughly masoned chapel - for it was no more; the

tablet commemorated, I was about to say the virtues, but rather the

existence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston; and Archie, under that

trophy of his long descent and local greatness, leaned back in the pew

and contemplated vacancy with the shadow of a smile between playful and

sad, that became him strangely. Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of

Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the young

laird. Aware of the stir of his entrance, the little formalist had kept

her eyes fastened and her face prettily composed during the prayer. It

was not hypocrisy, there was no one further from a hypocrite. The girl

had been taught to behave: to look up, to look down, to look

unconscious, to look seriously impressed in church, and in every

conjuncture to look her best. That was the game of female life, and she

played it frankly. Archie was the one person in church who was of

interest, who was somebody new, reputed eccentric, known to be young,

and a laird, and still unseen by Christina. Small wonder that, as

she stood there in her attitude of pretty decency, her mind should run

upon him! If he spared a glance in her direction, he should know she

was a well-behaved young lady who had been to Glasgow. In reason he

must admire her clothes, and it was possible that he should think her

pretty. At that her heart beat the least thing in the world; and she

proceeded, by way of a corrective, to call up and dismiss a series of

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