Colin had improved during the last year. He was younger than Miss Frankland, a fact of which she was aware, and he was at the age upon which a year tells mightily. Looking at him in the background, through clouds of complacent people who felt themselves Colin’s superiors, even an indifferent spectator might have distinguished the tall youth, with those heaps of brown hair overshadowing the forehead which might have been apostrophized as “domed for thought” if anybody could have seen it; and in his eyes that gleam of things miraculous, that unconscious surprise and admiration which would have given a touch of poetry to the most commonplace countenance. But Miss Matty was not an indifferent spectator. She was fond of him in her way as women are fond of a man whom they never mean to love--fond of him as one is fond of the victim who consents to glorify one’s triumph. As she looked at him, and saw how he had improved, and perceived the faithful allegiance with which he watched every movement she made, the heart of the beauty was touched. Worship is sweet, even when it is only a country boy who bestows it--and perhaps this country boy might turn out a genius or a poet. Not that Matilda cared much for genius or poetry, but she liked everything which bestows distinction, and was aware that in the lack of other titles, a little notability, even in society, might be obtained if one was wise, and knew how to manage it, even by such means. And besides all this, honestly and at the foundation, she was fond of Colin. When she had surveyed all the company, and had made up her mind that there was nobody there in the least degree interesting, she held up her fan with a pretty gesture, calling him to her. The lad made his way through the assembly at that call with a smile and glow of exultation which it is impossible to describe. His face was lighted up with a kind of celestial intoxication. “Who is that very handsome young man?” the Dowager Countess was moved to remark as he passed within her ladyship’s range of vision, which was limited, for Lady Hallamshire was, like most other people, shortsighted. “Oh, he is not a handsome young man, he is only the tutor,” said one of the ladies of the Holy Loch; but, notwithstanding, she too looked after Colin, with aroused curiosity. “I suppose Matty Frankland must have met him in society,” said the Dowager, who was the most comfortable of _chaperones_, and went on with her talk, turning her eyeglass towards her pretty charge. As for the young men, they stared at Colin with mingled consternation and wrath. What was he? a fellow who had not a penny, a mere Scotch student, to be distinguished by the prettiest girl in the room? for the aspiring people about the Holy Loch, as well as in the other parts of Scotland, had come to entertain that contempt for the national universities and national scholarship which is so curious a feature in the present transition state of the country.