CHAPTER XV.
My gold is gone, my money is spent, My land now take it unto thee.
Give me thy gold, good John o' the Scales, And thine for aye my land shall be.
Then John he did him to record draw.
And John he caste him a gods-pennie; But for every pounde that John agreed, The land, I wis, was well worth three.
HEIR OF LINNE.
The Galwegian John o' the Scales was a more clever fellow than his prototype.

He contrived to make himself heir of Linne without the disagreeable ceremony of 'telling down the good red gold.' Miss Bertram no sooner heard this painful, and of late unexpected, intelligence than she proceeded in the preparations she had already made for leaving the mansion-house immediately.

Mr.Mac-Morlan assisted her in these arrangements, and pressed upon her so kindly the hospitality and protection of his roof, until she should receive an answer from her cousin, or be enabled to adopt some settled plan of life, that she felt there would be unkindness in refusing an invitation urged with such earnestness.

Mrs.Mac-Morlan was a ladylike person, and well qualified by birth and manners to receive the visit, and to make her house agreeable to Miss Bertram.

A home, therefore, and an hospitable reception were secured to her, and she went on with better heart to pay the wages and receive the adieus of the few domestics of her father's family.
Where there are estimable qualities on either side, this task is always affecting; the present circumstances rendered it doubly so.