A Knight of the Nets

"Half-husband I trow, and half daddy, As humour inconstantly leans; The man must be patient and steady, That weds with a lass in her teens."

She had hardly finished the verse, when she heard a step blending with its echoes. Her ears rung inward; her eyes dilated with an unhappy expectancy; she put down her iron with a sudden faint feeling, and turned her face to the door.

Andrew entered the cottage. He looked at her despairingly, and sinking into his chair, he covered his wretched face with his hands.

It was not the same man who had left her a few hours before. A change, like that which a hot iron would make upon a green leaf, had been made in her handsome, hopeful, happy brother. She could not avoid an exclamation that was a cry of terror; and she went to him and kissed him, and murmured, she knew not what words of pity and love. Under their influence, the flood gates of sorrow were unloosed, he began to weep, to sob, to shake and tremble, like a reed in a tempest.

Christina saw that his soul was tossed from top to bottom, and in the madness of the storm, she knew it was folly to ask "why?" But she went to the door, closed it, slipped forward the bolt, and then came back to his side, waiting there patiently until the first paroxysm of his grief was over. Then she said softly:-"Andrew! My brother Andrew! What sorrow has come to you? Tell Christina."

"Sophy is dead--dead and gone for me. Oh Sophy, Sophy, Sophy!"

"Andrew, tell me a straight tale. You are not a woman to let any sorrow get the mastery over you."

"Sophy has gone from me. She has played me false--and after all these years, deceived and left me."

"Then there is still the Faithful One. His love is from everlasting, to everlasting. He changeth not."

"Ay; I know," he said drearily. But he straightened himself and unfastened the button at his throat, and stood up on his feet, planting them far apart, as if he felt the earth like the reeling deck of a ship. And Christina opened the little window, and drew his chair near it, and let the fresh breeze blow upon him; and her heart throbbed hotly with anger and pity.

"Sit down in the sea wind, Andrew," she said. "There's strength and a breath of comfort in it; and try and give your trouble words. Did you see Sophy?"

"Ay; I saw her."

"At her aunt's house?"

"No. I met her on the road. She was in a dog-cart; and the master of Braelands was driving her. I saw her, ere she saw me; and she was looking in his face as she never looked in my face. She loves him, Christina, as she never loved me."