That her father should be induced to accompany her to Scotland, that she should not be parted from him, had been so urgent a desire on Margaret's part, that her husband and James Dugdale had set themselves resolutely to obtain its realisation, and they had succeeded, with some difficulty. The collection was a great obstacle, but then Mr. Baldwin's collection--whose treasures the old gentleman politely and sincerely declared his eagerness to inspect, while he secretly cherished a pleasing conviction that he should find them very inferior to those of his own--was a great inducement; besides, he had corresponded formerly with a certain Professor Bayly, of Glasgow, who had some brilliant theories connected with _Bos primus_, and this would be a favourable opportunity for seeing the Professor, who rarely "came South," as he called visiting England. He was not at all disturbed by Margaret's eager desire that he should accompany her; he did not perceive in it the contradiction to her usual unselfish consideration for others, which James Dugdale saw and thoroughly understood, and which Mr. Baldwin saw and did not understand, but set down to the general account of her "nervousness." He had been rather unhappy at first about the journey and the change; but James's cheerful prognostications, and the unexpected discovery that Foster, his inseparable servant, whose displeasure was a calamity not to be lightly incurred, so far from objecting to the tremendous undertaking, "took to" the notion of a visit to the Deane very kindly, was a relief which no false shame interfered to prevent; Mr. Carteret candidly admitting, and the whole family thankfully recognising. "I don't know how I should have got through this day," Margaret said to James, as they stood together on the terrace under the verandah, and she plucked a few of the tender young leaves which had begun to unfold, under the persuasion of the spring time--"I don't know how I should have got through this day, if papa had not agreed to come with us. It is bad enough as it is; a last day"--she was folding the tiny leaves now, and putting them between the covers of her pocket-book--"is always dreadful--dreadful to _me_, I mean. It sounds stupid and commonplace to talk of the uncertainty of life, but I don't think other people live always under the presence of the remembrance, the conviction of it, as I do. It is always over me, and it makes everything which has anything of finality about it peculiarly impressive to me." Her hand was resting on his arm now, and they turned away from the house-front and walked down the grassy slope. "Do you--do you mean that this sense of uncertainty relates to yourself?" he asked her, speaking with evident effort, and holding her arm more closely to him.