And, with these memorable words, he ordered a detachment of his company to follow him, and rode off, though at first reluctantly, in the direction of the Brae. The route was passed in silence, for Sir Roland was buried in thought. There was indeed cause for it. One or two things in the last letter he had received from his daughter—and that missive had now been written a month—made him feel uneasy, lest she looked more favorably on the persecuted sect than became a daughter of his; and it was this fear, all at once recalled to mind by the business on which he had set forth this morning, that determined him so suddenly to leave the dispersion of the conventicle to his lieutenant, while he should ride over to the Brae, and bring his daughter home. Other thoughts, too, were busy within him. The long coveted rank had brought little alleviation to his soured and disappointed mind, for his fortune was now more than ever inadequate to his condition, and all the peculiarly sensitive feelings of a proud man were stung to the quick by the indignities to which, in consequence, he was often exposed. Moreover, he was aware of the light in which he was held, since his change of politics, not only by the common people, but by large portions of the gentry; so that, on every hand, he was soured and irritated, and longed to wreak on the Covenanters the hate which he felt toward all men. And yet, as he approached the Brae, and saw at a distance the low roof of the mansion from which he had taken his bride, gentler feelings stole into his bosom. He thought of her whom he had once loved with all the fervor of a first passion—he remembered the happy years they had spent together—and when he recollected that she was now no more, and that the last time he had beheld these roofs he had been in her company, a tear almost gathered into his eye. Then he thought of his daughter. As her image rose up before him, his heart was fully melted. With all the sternness of his character he loved that daughter as few fathers loved—ay! loved her doubly since her mother’s death, for she was now the only object in the whole wide world on which he could bestow aught of affection. And now, joy at the prospect of meeting her gave to his spirits the glad exhilaration of boyhood, and quickening his pace, he galloped gaily across the hills, nor drew his rein until he reached the door of the old mansion.