ill. The doctor said it was a malady of long standing which had thus

developed itself as it was certain to have done sooner or later. He recommended that a doctor should be sent for from Glasgow, who had become very famous for his practice in this particular malady. It is doubtful whether Glendochart, who had the conduct of the business, knew anything about Dr. Dewar. At all events, if he did, it did not prevent him from sending for that special practitioner. The result was a curious scene in the chamber of the patient, who raised himself from his bed to stare at the new comer, and after contemplating him for some time in doubtful silence between wrath and astonishment, suddenly burst out into a great guffaw of laughter. “This was all that was wanted,” he said. But he allowed Anne’s husband to come in, to examine him, to prescribe, and with a grim humour saw him wave away the offered fee. “Na, it’s all in the family,” said the grim patient with a sudden sense of the grotesque illumining the darkness of his sick room. He was not insensible to this irony of circumstance, and he made no resistance. It was the only thing that produced a gleam of amusement in these latter days.