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to me in love and in kindness. You have been the sole support of my old age, and of hers wha is now in the grave, and it is natural that I should like to see you put up afore I leave you. But Tibby Hyslop, John Jardine is not the man to lead a Christian life with. He las nae mair religion than the beasts that perish—he is frighted for it, and shuns it as a body would do a loathsome or poisonous draught: And besides it is weel kend how sair he neglected his first wife. Hae naething to do wi' him my dear bairn, but rather live as you are— There is neither sin nor shame in being unwedded, but there may be baith in joining yourself to an unbeliever."
Tibby wondered at this information. She did not know how she had been courted, and she found that she rather thought the better of the cooper for what it appeared he had done. Accordingly, she made no promises to her grandmother, but only remarked, that "it was a pity no to gie the cooper a chance o' conversion, honest man."
The cooper kept watch abont Drumlochie and the hinds' houses, and easily found out all the sly Gibby's movements,
