“I think it was; but don’t be alarmed, mother.”

“I am never frightened when you are with me.”

“And I always will be with you.”

“Ah, if you were married—­”

“Do you think,” asked Gavin, indignantly, “that it would make any difference to you?”

Margaret did not answer.  She knew what a difference it would make.

“Except,” continued Gavin, with a man’s obtuseness, “that you would have a daughter as well as a son to love you and take care of you.”

Margaret could have told him that men give themselves away needlessly who marry for the sake of their mother, but all she said was—­

“Gavin, I see you can speak more composedly of marrying now than you spoke a year ago.  If I did not know better, I should think a Thrums young lady had got hold of you.”

It was a moment before Gavin replied:  then he said, gaily—­

“Really, mother, the way the best of women speak of each other is lamentable.  You say I should be better married, and then you take for granted that every marriageable woman in the neighbourhood is trying to kidnap me.  I am sure you did not take my father by force in that way.”

He did not see that Margaret trembled at the mention of his father.  He never knew that she was many times pining to lay her head upon his breast and tell him of me.  Yet I cannot but believe that she always shook when Adam Dishart was spoken of between them.  I cannot think that the long-cherishing of the secret which was hers and mine kept her face steady when that horror suddenly confronted her as now.  Gavin would have suspected much had, he ever suspected anything.

“I know,” Margaret said, courageously, “that you would be better married; but when it comes to selecting the woman I grow fearful.  O Gavin!” she said, earnestly, “it is an awful thing to marry the wrong man!”

Here in a moment had she revealed much, though far from all, and there must have been many such moments between them.  But Gavin was thinking of his own affairs.

“You mean the wrong woman, don’t you, mother?” he said, and she hastened to agree.  But it was the wrong man she meant.

“The difficulty, I suppose, is to hit upon the right one?” Gavin said, blithely.

“To know which is the right one in time,” answered Margaret, solemnly.  “But I am saying nothing against the young ladies of Thrums, Gavin.  Though I have scarcely seen them, I know there are good women among them.  Jean says—–­”

“I believe, mother,” Gavin interposed, reproachfully, “that you have been questioning Jean about them?”

“Just because I was afraid—­I mean because I fancied—­you might be taking a liking to one of them.”

“And what is Jean’s verdict?”

“She says every one of them would jump at you, like a bird at a berry.”

“But the berry cannot be divided.  How would Miss Pennycuick please you, mother?”