230 Winter 



' If I were a man like you, Aleck, do you know 

 what I'd do ? I would make a big try to get these 

 same savings and bolt ; if you were quick and clever 

 enough they'd never catch you, and you could change 

 your name and get a new start.' 



' Ah, I've thought o' that, but the old one's ower 

 cunnin'. I believe he wears the key of the big chest 

 always round his neck.' 



' If that's all your trouble, I know where to get a 

 key. But would you not be frightened, Aleck ? Folk 

 might call it robbery.' 



' That wouldn't be true. The money is mine as. 

 much as his, for I've worked hardest for it, and there's 

 a lot of it yours, Kitty, and he wouldn't make much 

 noise about it. He wouldn't disgrace the name by 

 making it a by-word, and he liked you so much that 

 he wouldn't seek to get you into bad trouble. There 

 would be murder, though, if he got hold of us himself.' 



That was the way in which the elopement was 

 planned. During the next few days the cousins were 

 in almost constant conversation, and even shrewd 

 Adam was deceived, and thought, poor man, that his 

 niece had given up Willie Allan, not from any 

 mercenary motives, but because of the weighty advice 

 he had given her. Never had he felt more serenely 

 happy than on the next Sunday afternoon. The hare 

 had been cooked exactly to his liking the fore part 

 in soup, the back part in a pie and after a dinner 

 that might have pleased an emperor, followed by a 



