he membrana tympani of the
laird, where he sat at luncheon in the House of Glashruach.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LAIRD.

Thomas Galbraith was by birth Thomas Durrant, but had married an
heiress by whom he came into possession of Glashruach, and had,
according to previous agreement, taken her name. When she died he
mourned her loss as well as he could, but was consoled by feeling
himself now first master of both position and possession, when the
ladder by which he had attained them was removed. It was not that
she had ever given him occasion to feel that marriage and not
inheritance was the source of his distinction in the land, but that
having a soul as keenly sensitive to small material rights as it was
obtuse to great spiritual ones, he never felt the property quite his
own until his wife was no longer within sight. Had he been a little
more sensitive still, he would have felt that the property was then
his daughter's, and his only through her; but this he failed to
consider.

Mrs. Galbraith was a gentle sweet woman, who loved her husband, but
was capable of loving a greater man better. Had she lived long
enough to allow of their opinions confronting in the matter of their
child's education, serious differences would probably have arisen
between them; as it was, they had never quarrelled except about the
name she should bear. The father, having for her sake--so he said
to himself--sacrificed his patronymic, was anxious that in order to
her retaining some rudimentary trace of himself in the ears of men,
she should be overshadowed with his Christian name, and called
Thomasina. But the mother was herein all the mother, and obdurate
for her daughter's future; and, as was right between the two, she
had her way, and her child a pretty name. Being more sentimental
than artistic, however, she did not perceive how imperfectly the
sweet Italian Ginevra concorded with the strong Scotch Galbraith.
Her father hated the name, therefore invariably abbreviated it
after such fashion as rendered it inoffensive to the most
conservative of Scotish ears; and for his own part, at length, never
said Ginny, without seeing and hearing and meaning Jenny. As Jenny,
indeed, he addressed her in the one or two letters which were all he
ever wrote to her; and thus he perpetuated the one matrimonial
difference across the grave.

Having no natural bent to literature, but having in his youth
studied for and practised at the Scotish bar,