ch as she would have liked to have her son near her,
she knew that he was too old to acquire new tastes, and too young to be
content with a life of comparative inactivity. She told him so,
heartily and cheerfully, not marring the effect of her words by any
murmurs or repinings of her own. She only once said:

"If you could but have stayed in Scotland, Hugh, lad; for your mother is
growing old."

"Who knows but it may be so arranged?" said Hugh thoughtfully. "There
is a branch of our house in L--. It might be managed. But, whether or
not, I have a year, perhaps two, before me yet."

But it came to pass, all the same, that before the month of May was out
they were all settled at Glen Elder. Though "that weary spendthrift,"
Maxwell of Pentlands, as Mrs Stirling called him, could not break the
entail on the estate of Pentlands, as for the sake of his many debts and
his sinful pleasures he madly tried to do, he could dispose of the
outlying farm of Glen Elder; and Hugh Blair became the purchaser of the
farm and of a broad adjoining field, called the Nether Park. So he
owned the land that his fathers had only leased; or, rather, his mother
owned it, for it was purchased in her name, and was hers to have and to
hold, or to dispose of as she pleased. His mother's comfort, Hugh said,
and the welfare of his young cousins, must not be left to the risks and
chances of business. They must be put beyond dependence on his
uncertain life or possible failure, or he could not be quite at rest
with regard to them when he should be far away.

Glen Elder had not suffered in the hands of English Smith. As a
faithful servant of the owner, he had held it on favourable terms, and
had hoped to hold it long. So he had done well by the land, as all the
neighbours declared; though at first they had watched his new-fangled
plans with jealous eyes. It was "in good heart" when it changed hands,
and was looking its very best on the bright May day when they went home
to it. It was a happy day to them all, though it was a sad one, too,
for Hugh and his mother. But the sadness passed away in the cheerful
bustle of welcome from old friends; and it was not long before they
settled down into a quiet and pleasant routine.

The coming home, and the new life opening before her, seemed for a long
time strange and unreal to Lilias. She used to wake in the morning with
the burden of her cottage-cares upon her, till the sight of her pleasant
roo