"I am not a freethinker. I do not think, perhaps, at all so much as I ought," said Lewis. "One does not give one's attention, that is all. Ah, I think I understand; you have duties, a sort of anchor here. You cannot any longer do whatever you like; you must respect the house and the race. I admire all that very much, very much; but it cannot change the character; it cannot give more seriousness, more substance--I think that is the word." "It is often a great bore," said Stormont, with a passing cloud upon his brow. "I can understand that; but it is impressive," Lewis said. And then the two young men went into the modernized part of the building, into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Stormont, in her widow's cap, sat knitting near one of those windows which looked out upon the long rolling fields of the strath and the hills beyond. The country was rich with green corn waving thick and close, a very different landscape from that which was lighted up by the rapid flow of the river. The lady received Lewis very graciously. She made a few delicate researches to find out, if possible, to whom he belonged, but he was so ignorant of the Murrays, all and sundry, and so ready with his statement that the name had come to him as an inheritance along with money that curiosity was baffled. And Mrs. Stormont had no daughters to make her anxious. She thought him "very foreign," having more or less insight than the farmer's wife in the ferry-boat. "But he has a very nice face," Mrs. Stormont said, when he was gone. "I like the looks of him; there's innocence in it, and a good heart. He would do very well for Katie Seton, if he means to settle here." "There is no question, so far as I know, either of his settling here or of Katie Seton. I would not be so free with a girl's name, mother, if I were you," Stormont said, with some indignation. Perhaps it was to call forth this remark, which afforded her some information, that his mother spoke. CHAPTER VII.