To this proud intimation the young visitor listened in silence, not being able to connect the roughshod lad in the boat with a University, whatever might be its form. He addressed himself instead to the scones and butter which Jess the servant, a handsome, powerful woman of five feet eight or so, had set before him on the table. Jess lingered a little, ere she left the room, to pinch the baby’s cheeks, and say, “Bless the lamb! eh, what a guid bairn!” with patriarchal friendly familiarity. Meanwhile the farmer sat down, with a thump which made it creak, upon the large old haircloth sofa which filled up one end of the room. “I’ve heard there’s a great difference between our colleges and the colleges in England,” said Colin. “Wi’ you they dinna train a lad to onything in particular; wi’ us it’s a’ for a profession,--the kirk, or the law, or physic, as it may be,--a far mair sensible system. I’m no sure it’s just civil, though,” said the farmer, with a quaint mingling of Scotch complacency and Scotch politeness, “to talk to a stranger of naething but the inferiority o’ his ain country. It may be a’ true enough, but there’s pleasanter topics o’ discourse. The Castle’s a bonnie situation? and if you’re fond o’ the water, yachting, and boating, and that kind o’ thing, there’s grand opportunity amang our lochs.” “We’ve got a yacht,” said the boy, who found the scones much to his taste, and began to feel a glow of comfort diffusing itself through his inner man--“the fastest sailer I know. We made a little run yesterday down to the Kyles; but Sir Thomas prefers the grouse, though it’s awfully hard work, I can tell you, going up those hills. It’s so beastly wet,” said the young hero. “I never was down here before; but Sir Thomas comes every year to the Highlands; he likes it--he’s as strong as a horse--but I prefer the yacht, for my part.” “And who’s Sir Thomas, if ane may speer--some friend?” said the farmer’s wife. “Oh--he’s my father!” said the Etonian; and a natural flush of shamefacedness at acknowledging such a relationship rose upon the countenance of the British boy. “Your father?” said Mrs. Campbell, with some amazement, “that’s an awfu’ queer way to speak of your father; and have you ony brothers and sisters that you’re this lang distance off your lane,--and your mamma maybe anxious about you?” continued the kind mother, with a wistful look of inquiry. She was prepared to be sorry for him, concluding that a boy who spoke of his father in such terms, must be motherless, and a neglected child. It was the most tender kind of curiosity which animated the good woman. She formed a theory about the lad on the spot, as women do, and concluded that his cruel father paid no regard to him, and that the boy’s heart had been hardened by neglect and want of love. “Figure our Colin ca’ing the maister Mr. Campbell!” she said to herself, and looked very pitifully at young Frankland, who ate his scone without any consciousness of her amiable imaginations.