"If wood is getable at any price, I am not willing to see mother and you
shivering. Burn your wood as you need it, and trust for the future."

"I hae told your father the same thing often, Neil; careful, of course,
we must be, but sparing is not caring. There was once a wife who always
took what she wanted, and she always had enough." The fire blazed
merrily, and Neil smiled, and the Elder stretched out his thin legs to
the heat, and the whole feeling of the room was changed. Then Madame
said:

"Neil, your brother Alexander has gane to Scotland."

"I expected him to take that step."

"And he is sending little Maria to us, until he gets a home for her."

"I should not think she will be much in the way, mother. She is only a
child."

"She is nearly seventeen years old. She won't be much in my way; it is
you that will hae to take her out--to military balls and the like."

"Nonsense! I can't have a child trailing after me in such places."

"Vera likely you will trail after her. You will be better doing that
than after some o' the ladies o' Clinton's court."

"I can tell you, Neil," said Neil's father, "that it is a vera pleasant
sensation, to hae a bonnie lassie on your arm wha is, in a manner, your
ain. I ken naething in the world that gives a man such a superior
feeling."

Neil looked at the speaker with a curious admiration. He could not help
envying the old man who had yet an enthusiasm about lovely women.

"I fancy, sir," he answered, "that the women of your youth were a
superior creation to those of the present day. I cannot imagine myself
with any woman whose society would give me that sensation."

"Women are always the same, Neil--yesterday, to-day, and forever. What

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