The visits of the Laird were somewhat less frequent; but he was fortunate in always finding Roderick awake, and, after the first few days following the relapse, eager to converse; and as the visits were repeated two or three times a week, an intimacy sprung up between the two men which had not existed before. The Laird was pleased to find what he had not hitherto looked for, a sound and mature judgment and abundant common sense where he had been wont to expect only pious good intentions and a youthful enthusiasm, beautiful and interesting enough but somewhat raw, and needing much of the pressure of time and circumstance to squeeze out the green and vapid whey of youth and inexperience. Roderick was equally surprised to find that the husk of hard dry business shrewdness, which he had hitherto looked upon as the man himself, was but the dried or hardened scars or cicatrices of rubs and bruises long since endured by a true and gentle nature, now healed and wholesome, and that beneath the somewhat repulsive exterior, there were rich stores of experience, charity and christian wisdom. Heretofore their intercourse had consisted in visits from Roderick to Auchlippie on parochial business; and on these occasions Mrs. Sangster in her character of Mother in Israel, high patroness and Lady Bountiful to the congregation, was always present. It might be Roderick who proposed the subject to be considered or it might be the Laird, but at the first opening Mrs. Sangster would take up her parable, and after that there was little opportunity for any one else to slip in a word even edgewise. She loved the sound of her own sweet voice better than any other music, and with a silent, perforce an attentive audience, her periods would swell and round themselves with evangelical commonplaces, and a general overflowing of conventional piety. When his lady opened her mouth on any subject, it was the Laird's practice to close his for good and all; that was his mode of fulfilling the apostolic precept to honour the weaker vessel. Had he spoken, he would have been compelled to distinguish and except, to rip up sophisms and show that the conclusion arrived at was not deducible from the premises stated, and endless altercation would have ensued. Wherefore, like a sensible man, he held his peace, and left his fair partner to discourse at her own sweet will. When, also, it became necessary for him to express his own views, he would do it in the dryest, clearest, and most concise form, leaving no room for question or debate from his better and more loquacious half. It was therefore as if for the first time that these two met and became acquainted in that sickroom; and the discovery each made of the other was an unexpected happiness to both. Timidly and doubtfully Roderick would sometimes bring the conversation round to Sophia, but it was in a diffident and uncertain way. He hungered to hear or talk of her, but as regarded his hopes and aspirations he felt bound to keep silence.