The summer after, he paid a short visit to castle Weelset, and went one day to Corbyknowe, where he left a favourable impression upon all, which impression Kirsty had been the readier to receive because of the respect she felt for him as a student. The old imperiousness which made him so unlike his father had retired into the background; his smile, though not so sweet, came oftener; and his carriage was full of courtesy. But something was gone which his old friends would gladly have seen still. His behaviour in the old time was not so pleasant, but he had been as one of the family. Often disagreeable, he was yet loving. Now, he laid himself out to make himself acceptable as a superior. Freed so long from his mother’s lowering influences, what was of his father in him might by this time have come more to the surface but for certain ladies in Edinburgh, connections of the family, who, influenced by his good looks and pleasant manners, and possibly by his position in the Gordon country, sought his favour by deeds of flattery, and succeeded in spoiling him not a little. Steenie happening to be about the house when he came, Francis behaved to him so kindly that the gentle creature, overcome with grateful delight, begged him to go and see a house he and Kirsty were building. In some families the games of the children mainly consist in the construction of dwellings, of this kind or that--castle, or ship, or cave, or nest in the treetop--according to the material attainable. It is an outcome of the aboriginal necessity for shelter, this instinct of burrowing: Welbeck Abbey is the development of a _weem_ or _Picts’ house_. Steenie had very early shown it, probably from a vague consciousness of weakness, and Kirsty came heartily to his aid in following it, with the reaction of waking in herself a luxurious idea of sheltered safety. Northern children cherish in their imaginations the sense of protection more, I fancy, than others. This is partly owing to the severity of their climate, the snow and wind, the rain and sleet, the hail and darkness they encounter. I doubt whether an English child can ever have such a sense of protection as a Scots bairn in bed on a winter night, his mother in the nursery, and the wind howling like a pack of wolves about the house. Francis consented to go with Steenie to see his house, and Kirsty naturally accompanied them. By this time she had gathered the little that was known, and there is very little known yet, concerning _Picts’ houses_, and as they went it occurred to her that it would be pleasant to the laird to be shown a thing on his own property of which he had never heard, and which, in the eyes of some, would add to its value. She took the way, therefore, that led past the weem.