Mr. Sampson waved his hand impatiently.--‘It is not the lucre, it is not the lucre; but that I, that have ate of her father’s loaf, and drank of his cup, for twenty years and more--to think that I am going to leave her, and to leave her in distress and dolour! No, Miss Lucy, you need never think it! You would not consent to put forth your father’s poor dog, and would you use me waur than a messan? No, Miss Lucy Bertram, while I live I will not separate from you. I’ll be no burden; I have thought how to prevent that. But, as Ruth said unto Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to depart from thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou dwellest I will dwell; thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death do part thee and me.”’ During this speech, the longest ever Dominie Sampson was known to utter, the affectionate creature’s eyes streamed with tears, and neither Lucy nor Mac-Morlan could refrain from sympathising with this unexpected burst of feeling and attachment. ‘Mr. Sampson,’ said Mac-Morlan, after having had recourse to his snuff-box and handkerchief alternately, ‘my house is large enough, and if you will accept of a bed there while Miss Bertram honours us with her residence, I shall think myself very happy, and my roof much favoured, by receiving a man of your worth and fidelity.’ And then, with a delicacy which was meant to remove any objection on Miss Bertram’s part to bringing with her this unexpected satellite, he added, ‘My business requires my frequently having occasion for a better accountant than any of my present clerks, and I should be glad to have recourse to your assistance in that way now and then.’ ‘Of a surety, of a surety,’ said Sampson eagerly; ‘I understand book-keeping by double entry and the Italian method.’ Our postilion had thrust himself into the room to announce his chaise and horses; he tarried, unobserved, during this extraordinary scene, and assured Mrs. Mac-Candlish it was the most moving thing he ever saw; ‘the death of the grey mare, puir hizzie, was naething till’t.’ This trifling circumstance afterwards had consequences of greater moment to the Dominie. The visitors were hospitably welcomed by Mrs. Mac-Morlan, to whom, as well as to others, her husband intimated that he had engaged Dominie Sampson’s assistance to disentangle some perplexed accounts, during which occupation he would, for convenience sake, reside with the family. Mr. Mac-Morlan’s knowledge of the world induced him to put this colour upon the matter, aware that, however honourable the fidelity of the Dominie’s attachment might be both to his own heart and to the family of Ellangowan, his exterior ill qualified him to be a’squire of dames,’ and rendered him, upon the whole, rather a ridiculous appendage to a beautiful young woman of seventeen.