ith, I should do myself the honour of calling on Mr.
Galbraith."

Ginevra told him where they lived, but added she was afraid he must
not expect to see her father, for he had been out of health lately,
and would see nobody.

"At all events I shall give myself the chance," he rejoined, and
bidding the ladies good-bye, and nodding to the youths, turned and
walked away.

For some time there was silence. At length Donal spoke.

"Poor Fergus!" he said with a little sigh. "He's a good-natured
creature, and was a great help to me; but when I think of him a
preacher, I seem to see an Egyptian priest standing on the threshold
of the great door at Ipsambul, blowing with all his might to keep
out the Libyan desert; and the four great stone gods, sitting behind
the altar, far back in the gloom, laughing at him."

Then Ginevra asked him something which led to a good deal of talk
about the true and false in poetry, and made Mrs. Sclater feel it
was not for nothing she had befriended the lad from the hills in the
strange garments. And she began to think whether her husband might
not be brought to take a higher view of his calling.

On Monday Fergus went to pay his visit to Mr. Galbraith. As Ginevra
had said, her father did not appear, but Fergus was far from
disappointed. He had taken it into his head that Miss Galbraith
sided with him when that ill-bred fellow made his rude, not to say
ungrateful, attack upon him, and was much pleased to have a talk
with her. Ginevra thought it would not be right to cherish against
him the memory of the one sin of his youth in her eyes, but she
could not like him. She did not know why, but the truth was, she
felt, without being able to identify, his unreality: she thought it
was because, both in manners and in dress, so far as the custom of
his calling would permit, he was that unpleasant phenomenon, a fine
gentleman. She had never heard him preach, or she would have liked
him still less; for he was an orator wilful and prepense, choice of
long words, fond of climaxes, and always aware of the points at
which he must wave his arm, throw forward his hands, wipe his eyes
with the finest of large cambric handkerchiefs. As it was, she was
heartily tired of him before he went, and when he was gone, found,
as she sat with her father, that she could not recall a word he had
said. As to what had made the fellow stay so long, she was
therefore positively unable to give her father an answer;