“They are only lads,” said Martha, quietly, “and have not the consideration. We could not trust youths like them, as we can trust a more mature judgment. For our own sakes, I am very glad, Mr. Charteris, that _you_ saw poor Harry’s accident, and the cause of it--poor Harry!” Cuthbert Charteris was very much interested--so much so, that it did not occur to him what a very unsuitable time he had chosen for his visit--nor that the teapot on one side of the old-fashioned grate was beginning to puff a faint intimation that it had been left there too long, and that the kettle on the other was boiling away. It was very nearly ten o’clock, and, in a few minutes, the Church-going bells would ring forth their summons. Rose began to look embarrassed, and to dread being too late for Church; but the gentleman was talking to the baby and to Martha, and steadily kept his place. At last Rose, listening in terror for the first notes of the bell, shyly suggested to Martha that, perhaps, Mr. Charteris had not breakfasted. But Mr. Charteris had breakfasted; and as Martha lifted the puffing teapot from the place which was too hot for it, and bade Violet lay down her psalm-book, and began to fill the cups, Mr. Charteris drew his seat into the window, and kept possession. He had settled himself already quite on the footing of an old friend, and began to feel it very pleasant to sit there, looking out on the fresh wintry sunshine, and the clean humble families who began to set out in little bands for the far-away old parish Churches of Glasgow--not choosing to content themselves with the Chapel-of-ease, politely called St. George’s-in-the-Fields--profanely, the Black Quarry. There were a few such in this immediate neighbourhood, who went to the Barony, and the Tron and High Churches, as old residenters, and rather looked down upon the new. To look out on these--the mechanic father and thrifty mother, and group of home-spun children, embellished, perhaps, with a well-dressed daughter, working in the mills, and making money--and to look in again upon the little bright breakfast-table, and the three sisters--the mature, grave, elder woman--the Rose, in the flush of her fairest years, half-blown--the little, shy, dark-eyed child--Mr. Charteris felt himself very comfortable. They had to speak very low, for Agnes stole to the door of the inner room now and then, to lay her finger on her lips again, and telegraph the urgent necessity for silence--and speaking in half whispers makes even indifferent conversation look confidential. The friendship waxed apace--very rarely did such a man as Charteris come within sight or knowledge of this family. The atmosphere of commerce is rarely literary--in their class they had read of the fully equipped intellectual man, but had met him never.