“Martha is trustee, and has charge of all,” said Cuthbert; “and there is little Mrs. Allenders herself, and her two babies. Little Harry, the heir, is a fine, bold, intelligent boy, young as he is, and will want no care they can give him--that is very sure. Then there are two other children quite dependant on Martha--her own little sister, and another, a distant relation, poor and fatherless whom they have kept with them ever since they went to Allenders. Now there can be no doubt it would be easier for them to go away to some little, quiet, country house, and live on what they can earn themselves, and on the residue of what the land will bring; but Martha would break her heart. It is a generous devotion, uncle. She proposes to take the management of the farm herself, and has actually begun to make herself mistress of this knowledge, so strange for a woman; while the exertions of the others, and of her own spare hours, are to provide the household expenses, she calculates. All this is for Harry, and Harry’s heir; and it is no burst of enthusiasm, but a steady, quiet, undemonstrative determination. Come, uncle, you will help Martha?” “Is that the old sister--the passionate one?” asked Mr. Buchanan. “The passionate one--yes.” “And there was surely one more that you have not mentioned; by the bye, Cuthbert,” said Mr. Buchanan, hastily, “the boys used to say you went there often. There’s nothing between you and any of them, I hope?” “No, uncle!”--the humility of the answer struck Mr. Buchanan strangely. He almost thought for a moment that he had the little boy beside him, who used to spend holiday weeks in Glasgow, when Dick was a baby with streaming skirts, and “there was no word” of any of the others. It made the merchant’s heart tender, even when he turned to look upon the strong man by his side. But Cuthbert, for his part, thought himself guilty of disingenuousness, and by and bye, he added, “Don’t let me deceive you, uncle. When I say no, I don’t mean to imply that there will never be, nor that even if there never is anything between us, it will be any fault of mine.” But Mr. Buchanan only shook his head--how it came about, he could not tell, but the good man’s eyelids were moistened, and there came back to him momentary glimpses of many an early scene; he was pleased, too, however imprudent Cuthbert’s intentions might be, with the confidence he gave him--for that his nephew was more than his equal, the good merchant very well knew. So Mr. Buchanan shook his head, and satisfied his conscience with the mute protest; “he could not find it in his heart,” as he said to himself afterwards in self-justification, to condemn his nephew’s true love.