The entrance of Margaret would have prevented the prosecution of this conversation, even if it had not already drawn to a natural close. Not that David would not have talked thus before his daughter, but simply that minds, like instruments, need to be brought up to the same pitch, before they can “atone together,” and that one feels this instinctively on the entrance of another who has not gone through the same immediate process of gradual elevation of tone. Their books and slates were got out, and they sat down to their work; but Hugh could not help observing that David, in the midst of his lines and angles and algebraic computations, would, every now and then, glance up at Margaret, with a look of tenderness in his face yet deeper and more delicate in its expression than ordinary. Margaret was, however, quite unconscious of it, pursuing her work with her ordinary even diligence. But Janet observed it. “What ails the bairn, Dawvid, ‘at ye leuk at her that get? said she. “Naething ails her, woman. Do ye never leuk at a body but when something ails them?” “Ow, ay—but no that get.” “Weel, maybe I was thinkin’ hoo I wad leuk at her gin onything did ail her.” “Hoot! hoot! dinna further the ill hither by makin’ a bien doonsittin’ an’ a bed for’t.” All David’s answer to this was one of his own smiles. At supper, for it happened to be Saturday, Hugh said: “I’ve been busy, between whiles, inventing, or perhaps discovering, an etymological pedigree for you, David!” “Weel, lat’s hear’t,” said David. “First—do you know that that volume with your ancestor’s name on it, was written by an old German shoemaker, perhaps only a cobbler, for anything I know?” “I know nothing aboot it, more or less,” answered David. “He was a wonderful man. Some people think he was almost inspired.” “Maybe, maybe,” was all David’s doubtful response. “At all events, though I know nothing about it myself, he must have written wonderfully for a cobbler.” “For my pairt,” replied David, “if I see no wonder in the man, I can see but little in the cobbler. What for shouldna a cobbler write wonnerfully, as weel as anither? It’s a trade ‘at furthers meditation. My grandfather was a cobbler, as ye ca’t; an’ they say he was no fule in his ain way either.”