! We are going as far as the Shetlands. John had a happy holiday
there before we were married. He is taking Stephen and George to see the
lonely isles."

"You have had a very happy life, Lady Hatton?"

"Yes," she answered. "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places."

"And you have beautiful children."

"Thank God! His blessing and peace came to me from the cradle. One day I
found my Bible open at II Esdras, second chapter, and my eyes fell on
the fifteenth verse: 'Mother, embrace thy children and bring them up
with gladness.' I knew a poor woman who had ten children, and instead of
complaining, she was proud and happy because she said God must have
thought her a rare good mother to trust her with ten of His sons and
daughters."

"I have not seen much of Sir John."

"He is on the yacht with the boys most of the time. They are visiting
every day some one or other of the little storied towns of Fife.
Sometimes it is black night when they get back to St. Andrews. But they
have always had a good time even if it turned stormy. John finds, or
makes, good come from every event. Greenwood--you remember Greenwood?"

"Oh, yes!"

"He used to say Sir John Hatton is the full measure of a man. He was
very proud of Sir John's title, and never omitted, if it was possible to
get it in, the M.P. after it. Greenwood died a year ago as he was
sitting in his chair and picking out the hymns to be sung at his
funeral. They were all of a joyful character."

So we talked, and of course only the best in everyone came up for
discussion, but then in fine healthy natures the best _does_ generally
come to the top--and this was undoubtedly one reason that conversation
on any subject always drifted in some way or other to John Hatton. His
faith in God, his love for his fellowmen, his noble charity, his
inflexible justice, his domestic virtues, his confidence in himself, and
his ready-handed use of all the means at his command--yea, even his
beautiful manliness, what were they but the outcome of one thousand
years of Christian faith transmitted through a royally religious
ancestry?

When a good man is prosperous in all his ways they say in the North "God
smiled on him before he was born," and John Hatton gave to this blessing
a date beyond limitation, for a little illuminated roll hanging above
the desk in his private room bore the following golden-lettered
inscription:

...God smiled as He has always smiled,
Ere suns and mo