ust be his father! Whether the Sir was title or
nickname, I neither know nor care. A title without money is as bad
as a saintship without grace. But this I tell you, that if I hear
of your speaking one word, good or bad, to the fellow again, I will,
I swear to Almighty God, I will turn you out of the house."

To Ginevra's accumulated misery, she carried with her to her room a
feeling of contempt for her father, with which she lay struggling in
vain half the night.

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE CONFESSION.

Although Gibbie had taken no notice of the laird's party, he had
recognized each of the three as he came up the stair, and in
Ginevra's face read an appeal for deliverance. It seemed to say,
"You help everybody but me! Why do you not come and help me too?
Am I to have no pity because I am neither hungry nor cold?" He did
not, however, lie awake the most of the night, or indeed a single
hour of it, thinking what he should do; long before the poor woman
and her children were in bed, he had made up his mind.

As soon as he came home from college the next day and had hastily
eaten his dinner, going upon his vague knowledge of law business
lately acquired, he bought a stamped paper, wrote upon it, and put
it in his pocket; then he took a card and wrote on it: Sir Gilbert
Galbraith, Baronet, of Glashruach, and put that in his pocket also.
Thus provided, and having said to Mistress Croale that he should
not be home that night--for he expected to set off almost
immediately in search of Donal, and had bespoken horses, he walked
deliberately along Pearl-street out into the suburb, and turning to
the right, rang the bell at the garden gate of the laird's cottage.
When the girl came, he gave her his card, and followed her into the
house. She carried it into the room where, dinner over, the laird
and the preacher were sitting, with a bottle of the same port which
had pleased the laird at the manse between them. Giving time, as he
judged, and no more, to read the card, Gibbie entered the room: he
would not risk a refusal to see him.

It was a small room with a round table. The laird sat sideways to
the door; the preacher sat between the table and the fire.

"What the devil does this mean? A vengeance take him!" cried the
laird.

His big tumbling eyes had required more time than Gibbie had
allowed, so that, when with this exclamation he lifted them from the
card, they fell upon the object of his imprecation stan