He was a little spare man, with hair nearly white, and a hale ruddy cheek. Seated in an arm-chair, in front of his parlour window, with a book in his hand, it was very evident that the good man’s book had very little share of his attention. At present he was telling a story to his audience; and Cuthbert admired the natural eloquence, the simple grace of language, in which he clothed it. His speech was quite Scottish, and even a little provincial, but untainted with the least mixture of vulgarity; and when he had rounded his tale with a quotation from Burns, he opened the book in which he had been keeping his place with his finger, only to close it again immediately, when a new demand was made upon his attention. “Eh, Mr. Muir,” said one of the girls, “what for have ye such lots of horse-gowans yonder in the corner?” “They’re no horse-gowans, Beatie, my woman--they’re camomile,” said the old man. “And what is’t for? is it for eating?” asked the curious Beatie. “It’s for making drinks for no weel folk,” volunteered a better-informed companion. “It’s for selling to John Wilson, the man that has taken up physic at his own hand,” said the chairman of this strange assembly. “They tell me he’s a friend of Dr. Hornbook’s; you’ve all read of Dr. Hornbook in Burns.” There was a general assent; but some, among whom was the Beatie aforesaid, looked wistful and curious, and had not heard of that eminent personage. “It’s a profane thing, a profane thing,” said Alexander Muir. “Keep to the Cottar, like good bairns. Ye’ll get no ill out of it. But what ails ye, Beatie, my woman?” “Eh, sir, it’s a gentleman,” said Beatie, under her breath. Whereupon there ensued a dead silence, and a fit of spasmodic industry came upon the girls, occasionally interrupted by a smothered titter, as one of the more mischievous, who sat with her back to the door, tempted to laughter her companions, whose downcast faces were towards the stranger. Cuthbert introduced himself in a few words, and was heartily greeted by the old man. “I have an obligation to you, sir, as well as the rest of them, for your care of Harry,” said the uncle; “and ye left them well? They are my family, these bairns, an old solitary man as I am, and their friends are most welcome to me.” “You seem to have another family round you here,” said Cuthbert, looking with a smile on the demure group before him, some of whom were painfully suppressing the laugh which they could not altogether conceal. “Neighbours’ bairns,” said Alexander Muir; “bits of innocent things that have not the freedom of a garden like mine at home. There is a kind of natural kin between them and the spring. I like to see them among my flowers, and I think their work gets on all the better, that they are cheery in the doing of it; but to tell you the truth, I cannot see, Mr. Charteris, how our own bairns should think themselves better in Glasgow than with me, now that Harry has gotten a wife.”