“Oh, ay, the Glasgow folk,” said Mrs. Campbell; and she gave a curious inquiring glance at her son, who was looking out of the window with every appearance of abstraction. “Do you know anybody that’s coming, Colin?” said the anxious mother; “some of your new friends?” And Colin was so sensible of her look, though his eyes were turned in exactly the opposite direction, that his face grew crimson up to the great waves of brown hair which were always tumbling about his forehead. He thrust his heavy lovelocks off his temples with an impatient hand, and got up and went to the window that his confusion might not be visible. Big Colin of Ramore was at the window too, darkening the apartment with his great bulk, and the farmer laid his hand on his son’s shoulder with a homely roughness, partly assumed to conceal his real feeling. “How tall are you, laddie? no much short of me now,” he said. “Look here, Jeanie, at your son.” Then the mistress put down her work, and came up to them, defeating all Colin’s attempts to escape her look; but in the meantime she, too, forgot the blushes of her boy in the pleasant sight before her. She was but a little woman herself, considered in the countryside rather too soft and delicate for a farmer’s wife; and with all the delicious confidence of love and weakness, the tender woman looked up at her husband and her son. “Young Mr. Frankland’s no half so tall as Colin,” said the proud mother; “no that height is anything to brag about unless a’ things else is conformable. He’s weel enough, and a strong-built callant, but there’s a great difference; though, to be sure, his mother is just as proud,” said the mistress, bearing her conscious superiority with meekness; “it’s a grand thing that we’re a’ best pleased with our ain.” “When did you see young Frankland?” said Colin, hastily. The two boys had scarcely met since the encounter which had made a link between the families without awaking very friendly sentiments in the bosoms of the two persons principally concerned. “That’s a thing to be discussed hereafter,” said the farmer of Ramore. “I didna mean to say onything about it till I saw what your inclinations were, but women-folk are aye hasty Sir Thomas has made me a proposition, Colin. He would like to send you to Oxford with his own son if you and me were to consent. We’re to gie him an answer when we’ve made up our minds. Nae doubt he has heard that you were like enough to be a creditable protejee,” said Big Colin, with natural complacency. “A lad of genius gies distinction to his patron--if ye can put up with a patron, Colin.”