"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth your keeping you can save in your memory."
"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."
"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."
So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow. He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she expected—certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself surrounded by undreamed of luxury.
Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she discovered that it was largely spent in two directions—scientific discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her; and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he found, and so not lose his labor."
Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position. In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways, she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you, I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."
This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast, untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.
About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."
"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."
"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."