had any heart," said Ginevra, "you would have seen in
his face that he was a perfect angelic child. He ran to the
mountain, without a rag to cover his bleeding body, and would have
died of cold and hunger, had not the Grants, the parents of your
father's herd-boy, Mr. Duff, taken him to their hearts, and been
father and mother to him."--Ginevra's mouth was opened at
last.--"After that," she went on, "Angus, that bad man, shot him
like a wild beast, when he was quietly herding Robert Grant's sheep.
In return Sir Gilbert saved his life in the flood. And just before
the house of Glashruach fell--the part in which my room was, he
caught me up, because he could not speak, and carried me out of it;
and when I told you that he had saved my life, you ordered him out
of the house, and when he was afraid to leave me alone with you,
dashed him against the wall, and sent for Angus to whip him again.
But I should have liked to see Angus try it then!"

"I do remember an insolent fellow taking advantage of the ruinous
state the house was in to make his way into my study," said the
laird.

"And now," Ginevra continued, "Mr. Duff makes question of his wits
because he finds him carrying a poor woman's children, going to get
them a bed somewhere! If Mr. Duff had run about the streets when he
was a child, like Sir Gilbert, he might not, perhaps, think it so
strange he should care about a houseless woman and her brats!"

Therewith Ginevra burst into tears.

"Abominably disagreeable!" muttered the laird. "I always thought she
was an idiot!--Hold your tongue, Jenny! you will wake the street.
All you say may or may not be quite true; I do not say you are
telling lies, or even exaggerating; but I see nothing in it to prove
the lad a fit companion for a young lady. Very much to the
contrary. I suppose he told you he was your injured, neglected,
ill-used cousin? He may be your cousin: you may have any number of
such cousins, if half the low tales concerning your mother's family
be true."

Ginevra did not answer him--did not speak another word. When Fergus
left them at their own door, she neither shook hands with him nor
bade him good night.

"Jenny," said her father, the moment he was gone, "if I hear of your
once speaking again to that low vagabond,--and now I think of it,"
he cried, interrupting himself with a sudden recollection, "there
was a cobbler-fellow in the town here they used to call Sir Somebody
Galbraith!--that m