'I do not precisely know,' replied the minister, whose son listened to all this with a lowering brow, but lingered a little behind his father, and, while the latter was striding along the green lanes towards the manse, Robert was telling Ellinor over again of all his hopes and plans, and his expectation of certainly graduating in medicine at Edinburgh, and that he would get his diploma very shortly; and then--and then--what then? A kiss given in secret seemed more than a reward for all his labours and consumption of the midnight oil in a lonely lodging up a common stair near the old '_Academia Jacobi VI. Scotorum Regis_,' and where he had pored for many a weary hour over 'Quain's Anatomy,' 'Christison's Dispensatory,' 'Balfour's Botany,' and so forth, inspired by his love for Ellinor Wellwood, and now he left her, with his heart full of happy dreams of the future. 'Why did Dr. Wodrow bring those two strange gentlemen here?' remarked Ellinor. 'You may well surmise,' said Mary; 'to visit two girls living alone as we do. It is so unlike him and his usual care.' '_That_ Captain Colville struck me as being very inquisitive about us and our surroundings.' 'I do not think so,' replied Mary; 'but his friend appeared a very _blasé_ man of the world indeed, if I am a correct judge. But, if afternoon tea was merely their object, why not have gone to the manse?' Gentlemen visitors--especially of such a style as these two--one a baronet, the other a Guardsman and claimant of a peerage--were not very usual at Birkwoodbrae; so, apart from the natural surmises as to why the old minister, usually so wary, chary, and shy about all introductions, should have brought these two to pass, the two girls had much to speculate upon that proved of considerable interest to both. Old Colonel Wellwood, as we have said, when on his death-bed, had verbally left his two orphan daughters in the care and custody of his old friend the minister, and faithfully and kindly had the latter and his worthy better-half taken the trust upon them. But no influence could induce the sisters, Mary especially, to quit Birkwoodbrae and reside at the manse. There was a strong spirit of independence in the girls, and believing in self-help they continued to reside in the house wherein their parents died, undisturbed, as we have said, by their kinsman, who was far away abroad.