The two young men greeted each other heartily--it seemed that there was some charm in these very faults of poor Harry--for everybody learned to like and apologise for, even while they blamed him. “And so you are going to Ayr,” said Harry, “why did you not come a little earlier, Mr. Charteris, that I might have shown our town to you. You will not appreciate the beauties it has, unless some one, native to it, points them out.” “For which cause I am here to seek an introduction which Miss Muir promised me to your uncle,” said Cuthbert. “To my uncle? are you a character hunter, Mr. Charteris?” said Harry quickly, and with something which Rose thought looked like rudeness. “No, I don’t think so--but why do you ask me?” “Because the vulgar call my uncle a character and an original,” said Harry. “I thought your cousin, who saw him once, might have told you so,--and he does not like the imputation. We are jealous of my uncle’s feelings, as we have a good right to be, for he has been father, and teacher, and companion alike to all of us.” “I had some business in the neighbourhood of Ayr,” said Cuthbert, with a little conscious embarrassment--“one of those things in our profession that border upon the romantic,--there are not many of them, Miss Rose;--I want to trace out some links of descent--to find some lost members of an old family. I shall find them only by means of gravestones I apprehend, but that will answer my purpose. It is not quite in my department, this kind of business; but it is pleasant to have some excuse for seeing so fine a country in this time when ‘folk are longen to gon on pilgrimages.’--I think you must begin to feel this longing, Miss Muir?” “It is wonderful how easily one can content oneself,” said Martha, with a smile which spoke of singular peace. “We have only to shut our eyes, Rose and I, and straightway we are at home--or to send some one else to enjoy it, Mr. Charteris. Harry and Agnes, have brought us so much of the atmosphere that I scarcely desire it now for myself.” CHAPTER X. “Ay, even here, in the close city streets, ’Tis good to see the sunset--how the light, Curious and scornful, thrusts away the masses Of vapour brooding o’er the busy town, Yet leaves a trace of rosy light the while Even on the thing it scorns. And the rich air gives sweetness to all sounds; And hazy sunbeams glorify young faces-- And labour turns aside, glad of its hour Of aimless idling.”