So it came about that long ere Ailie reached home it was on young Heriotside that her mind dwelled, and it was the love of him that made her eyes glow and her cheeks redden.

And when he goes to greet his mother the surreality of it all stares him in the face: in two years she's turned into a little old lady.

LE seized the package.

Paranoid. Now he knew what it meant, this word that was bandied and bruited so easily, and he sensed the connections being made around him, …