With a well-knit, well-set-up figure, Robert Wodrow was an active-looking young fellow, somewhat less in stature than Sir Redmond, less dignified in air and bearing, yet not less like a gentleman. He had his father's regular features, his open character of face, and honest dark-grey eyes, in which at times there was a thoughtful expression, the result of hard study. At others a merry, devil-may-carish one, the result of life among the rollicking medical students of a great University. Without adverting to any subject on which the two had been talking with reference to himself, he proceeded at once to address Ellinor. 'I have brought the ferns you wished for,' said he, placing in her hand a tuft of sprays. 'Oh, thanks; my wish was so slightly expressed.' 'It was a command to me,' he said, in a low voice. 'How far did you walk for them?' 'More than ten miles down Earn side.' 'Ten miles!' 'Near to Strath Allan.' 'Dear me--the Allan Water!' said Sir Redmond. 'Is that the place where the miller's lovely daughter so sadly misconducted herself in the sweet spring time of the year?' Robert's reply to this question was only a cold and haughty stare, under which even the baronet's _insouciance_ nearly failed him, but from that moment the two men instinctively felt themselves enemies. 'Why did you take so much trouble for a mere trifle, Robert?' asked the girl. 'Because I heard you express a wish to have that particular fern, Ellinor,' replied the young fellow, whose eyes seemed to say that he would have gone ten times the distance ungrudgingly for one of her old smiles, or for the smile she was now according, not to him, but to her strange visitor, whose eyebrows were slightly and inquiringly elevated, as he glanced at the speaker, who seemed so much _en famille_ at Birkwoodbrae, and called Ellinor by her Christian name, and who saw that she placed the fern leaves on the table, and soon--Robert Wodrow thought too soon--forgot all about them apparently. 'You have known Robert long, I presume, Miss Ellinor?' said Sir Redmond, with a twinkle in his cold, china-blue eyes, and as he would have spoken of a boy or a child. 'I have known him all my life,' she replied. 'Indeed!' drawled the other, who now rose and took up his hat, as Colville and Dr. Wodrow appeared, and were about to depart, and, bidding adieu to the ladies, the two visitors from Craigmhor bent their steps in that direction, while the minister lingered behind. 'Isn't she pretty!' exclaimed Sir Redmond, as they proceeded along the highway that seemed like a private avenue, so thickly was it bordered and over-arched by beautiful and drooping silver birches. 'She--who--which?' asked Captain Colville, with a slightly ruffled tone. 'Ellinor--the youngest sister.' '_Miss_ Ellinor Wellwood,' said Colville, with an accent on the word, 'is downright lovely, man; but you think every girl pretty, especially when in the country.'