“This comes of Meredith’s talk, I suppose,” he said; “and of course it has been about me, or it would not have riled you. How often have you told me that you understood the state of mind which produced all that? He is very good at the bottom, Lauderdale,” said Colin. “There’s a good fellow, give me my little writing-case. I want to write it out.” “You want to write what out?” asked Lauderdale. “Some of your nonsense verses? I’ll give you no writing-case. Lie down in your bed and keep yourself warm.” “You’re awfu’ fond of looking at your ain productions. I’ve no doubt its terrible rubbish if a man could read it. Let’s see the thing. Do you think a parcel of verses in that halting _In Memoriam_ metre--I’m no saying anything against _In Memoriam_--but if _I_ set up for a poet, I would make a measure for mysel’--are worth an illness? and the cold of this wretched place is enough to kill ony rational man. Eetaly! I wouldna send a dog here, to be perished with cold and hunger. Do what I tell you, callant, and lie down. It shows an awfu’ poverty of invention, that desire to copy everything out.” “Stuff!” said Colin; “you don’t suppose it is for myself. I want to give it to somebody,” said the young man with a conscious smile. And to look at him with his countenance all a-glow, pleasure and fun and affection brightening his eyes, and his face lighted up with the gentle commotion of thought which had ended in that writing of verses, it was hard to think of him as a man whom God for a solemn purpose had weighted with affliction--as he had appeared in Meredith’s eyes. Rather he looked, what he was, one of God’s most joyful and gifted creatures; glad without knowing why; glad because the sweet imaginations of youth had possession of him, and filled heaven and earth with brave apparitions. Love and anxiety had introduced into the heart of Lauderdale, so far as Colin was concerned, a certain feminine element--and he laughed unsteadily out of a poignant thrill of relief and consolation, as he took the book from his patient’s hands. “He’s no a callant that can do without an audience,” said Lauderdale; “and, seeing it’s poetry that’s in question, no doubt it’s a female audience that’s contemplated. You may spare yourself the trouble, Colin. She’s bonnie, and she’s good; and I’m no free to say that I don’t like her all the better for caring for none of these things; but I see no token that she’ll ever get beyond Watts’s hymns all her days. You needna trouble your head about writing out things for her.”