His Scotch family was a good one; he was connected with many noble houses; he could tell long traditional stories of the feats of the Grants and the Gillespies, his father’s and mother’s ancestors; and it was wonderful how much the history of Scotland, and indeed that of the world generally, seemed to hang on the exploits of those ancient clans.  Though Harriett was not a Scotchwoman (it was the only drawback to their perfect suitability), she appreciated these anecdotes wonderfully well.  Dr. Grant laid himself out to please her in a much more marked manner than Brandon had ever done, and his success was much greater.  He had a subdued feeling that his neighbour at Barragong was his rival, as he had seen so much of Harriett in England, so he lost no opportunity of mentioning anything that would tell against him.

Then he was of the same profession as her father and brother Vivian, and liked to hear her talk of them.  Indeed, provided he got time and opportunity to speak about his own relations, connections, and friends—­to give anecdotes of his schoolboy and college days, more interesting to his mother than to any one else heretofore—­to describe how he had felt the colonial hardships at first, and how he had gradually made himself very comfortable at Ben More (which was the name he had given to his station, so much more suitable for a Scottish squatter than such native names as Brandon and Phillips had retained for theirs);—­he would allow Harriett to give her school and society reminiscences too, to describe her home in Derbyshire—­the furniture, the ornaments, the lawn, and the greenhouse—­the county Stanleys, and the county balls.  As they were generally tete-A-tete four or five hours a day, they had ample time for descanting on all these interesting topics.  Any visitors who might drop in, or any visit that they might pay together only gave fresh food for further comparison of their own personal tastes and predilections.  Miss Phillips’s avowed contemptuous compassion for everything colonial did not at all offend Dr. Grant.  He had never been thoroughly acclimatized himself, and he had vowed never to marry any of the second-rate colonial girls, who, as he thought, had no manner and no style.  It was surprising how well these two new friends agreed about everything and everybody.

Dr. Grant, from his education and his habits, considered himself a reading man, and a very well informed one.  Miss Phillips, too, had thought Brandon greatly her inferior in literary acquirements, as in all other things; but it was singular to observe how little these two people, who were so congenial to each other, and who enjoyed each other’s company so much, and had so much of it, talked about the many books they must have read.  As for religion, politics, or any other of the great concerns of life, they never seemed to rise even on the surface of conversation; and when a book happened to be mentioned, it was dismissed with a casual remark, such as “I read it,”