es: secure of the
admiration of one, he hoped it might help to draw the favour of the
other. He had conceived the notion that Ginevra probably disliked
his profession, and took pains therefore to show how much he was a
man of the world--talked about Shakspere, and flaunted rags of
quotation in elocutionary style; got books from his study, and read
passages from Byron, Shelley, and Moore--chiefly from "The Loves of
the Angels" of the last, ecstasizing the lawyer's lady, and
interesting Ginevra, though all he read taken together seemed to her
unworthy of comparison with one of poor Donal's songs.

It grew late. The dinner had been at a fashionable hour; they had
stayed an unfashionable time: it was nearly twelve o'clock when
guests and host left the house in company. The lawyer and his wife
went one way, and Fergus went the other with the laird and Ginevra.

Hearing the pitiful wailing of a child and the cough of a woman, as
they went along a street bridge, they peeped over the parapet, and
saw, upon the stair leading to the lower street, a woman, with a
child asleep in her lap, trying to eat a piece of bread, and
coughing as if in the last stage of consumption. On the next step
below sat a man hushing in his bosom the baby whose cry they had
heard. They stood for a moment, the minister pondering whether his
profession required of him action, and Ginevra's gaze fixed on the
head and shoulders of the foreshortened figure of the man, who
vainly as patiently sought to soothe the child by gently rocking it
to and fro. But when he began a strange humming song to it, which
brought all Glashgar before her eyes, Ginevra knew beyond a doubt
that it was Gibbie. At the sound the child ceased to wail, and
presently the woman with difficulty rose, laying a hand for help on
Gibbie's shoulder. Then Gibbie rose also, cradling the infant on
his left arm, and making signs to the mother to place the child on
his right. She did so, and turning, went feebly up the stair.
Gibbie followed with the two children, one lying on his arm, the
other with his head on his shoulder, both wretched and pining, with
gray cheeks, and dark hollows under their eyes. From the top of the
stair they went slowly up the street, the poor woman coughing, and
Gibbie crooning to the baby, who cried no more, but now and then
moaned. Then Fergus said to the laird:

"Did you see that young man, sir? That is the so-called Sir Gilbert
Galbraith we were tal