CHAPTER VIII.

A NEW FACTOR.

Mrs. Mowbray took the minister’s arm with a little eagerness. “I am so glad,” she said, “so very glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you alone. I want so much to consult you, Mr. Buchanan. I should have ventured to come over in the morning to ask for you, if I had not this opportunity; but then your wife would have had to know, and just at first I don’t want anyone to know--so I am more glad of this opportunity than words can say----”

“I am sure,” said Mr. Buchanan, steadily, “that I shall be very glad if I can be of any use to you. I am afraid you will not find much to interest you in our homely garden. Vegetables on one side, and flowers on the other, but at the east corner there is rather a pretty view. I like to come out in the evening, and see the lighthouses in the distance slowly twirling round. We can see the Bell Rock----”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “I have no doubt it is very fine, but take me to the quietest corner, never mind about the view--other people will be coming to see the view, and to talk is what I want.”

“I don’t think anyone will be coming,” said the minister, and he led her among the flower-beds, and across what was then, in homely language, called not the lawn, but the green, to the little raised mound upon which there was a little summer-house, surrounded with tall lilac bushes--and the view. Mrs. Mowbray gave but a passing glance at the view.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “the same as you see from the cliffs, the Forfarshire coast and the bay. It is very nice, but not remarkable--whereas what I have got to say to you is of the gravest importance--at least to Frank and me. Mr. Buchanan, as the clergyman, you must know of everything that is going on--you knew the late Mr. Anderson, my husband’s uncle, very well, didn’t you? Well, you know Frank has always been brought up to believe himself his great-uncle’s heir. And we believed it would be something very good. My poor husband, in his last illness, always said, ‘Uncle John will provide for you and the boy.’ And we thought it would be quite a good thing. Now you know, Mr. Buchanan, it is really not at all a good thing.”

In the green shade of the foliage, Mr. Buchanan’s face looked gray. He said, “Indeed, I am sorry,” in a mechanical way, which seemed intended to give the impression that he was not interested at all.

“Oh, perhaps you think that is not of much importance,” said the lady. “Probably you imagine that we have enough without that. But it is not really so--it is of the greatest importance to Frank and me. Oh, here are some people coming! I knew other people would be coming to see this stupid view--when they can see it from the road just as well, any time they please.”

It was a young pair of sweethearts who came up the little knoll, evidently with the intention of appropriating the summer-house, and much embarrassed to find their seniors in possession. They had, however, to stay a little and talk, which they all did wildly, pointing out to each other the distant smoke of the city further up, and the white gleam of the little light-house opposite. Mrs. Mowbray said scarcely anything, but glared at the intrusive visitors, to whom the minister was too