His daughter met him with a grave face.  The determined Hutchison blood ran still and sure in her veins.

“Father,” she said, “what I am going to tell you will give you pain:  I have promised to marry Duncan Rowallan.”

The stern old minister swayed—­doubting whether he had heard aright.

“Marry Duncan Rowallan, the dominie!” he said; “the lassie’s gane gyte!  He’s dismissed and a pauper!”

“No,” she said; “on the contrary, he has got a mastership at the High School.  I have promised to marry him.”

The old man said no word.  He did not try to hector Grace, as he would have done any one outside the manse.  Her household autocracy asserted itself even in that supreme moment.  Besides, he knew that it would be so useless, for she was his own child.  He put one hand up uncertainly and smoothed his brow vaguely, as though something hurt him and he did not understand.

He sat down in his great chair, and took up a little fire-screen that had stood many years by his chair.  Grace had worked it as a sampler when as a little girl she went to the village school and had slept at night in his room in a little trundle-bed.  He looked at it strangely.

“Grade,” he said, “Gracie—­my wee Gracie!”—­and then he set the fire-screen down very gently.  “I am an old man and full of years,” he said.  He looked worn and broken.

Grace went quickly and put her arms about his neck.

“No, no, father,” she said; “you have only gained a son.”

But the old man’s passions could not turn so quickly, not having the pliancy of youth and love.  He only shook his head sadly.

“Not so,” he said; “I am left a lonely man—­my house is left unto me desolate.”

Yet, nevertheless, Grace was right.  He stays with them for a month every Assembly time, and lectures them daily on the relations of Church and State.

II

A FINISHED YOUNG LADY

  I

I cannot send thee gold Nor silver for a show; Nor are there jewels sold One-half so dear as thou.

  II

No daffodil doth blow In this dull winter time, Nor purple violet grow In so unkind a clime.

  III

To-day I have not got One spray of meadow-sweet, Nor blue forget-me-not My posy to complete.

  IV

Yet none of these can claim So much goodwill as you; Their lips put not to shame Cowslip end Oxlip too.

  V

But joy I’ll take in this, Pleasure more sweet than all, If thou this book but kiss As Love’s memorial.

There were few bigger men in the West of Scotland than Fergus Teeman, the grocer in Port Ryan.  He had come from Glasgow and set up in quite grand style, succeeding to the business of his uncle, John M’Connell, who had spent all his days selling treacle and snuff to the guidwives of the Port.  When Fergus Teeman came from Glasgow, he found that he could not abide the small-paned, gloomy windows of the grocer’s shop at the corner, so in a little while the whole shop became window and door, overfrowned by mere eyebrows of chocolate-coloured eaves.