“It’s my ain curing,” said Miss Eelen. “Ye can scarcely call it butcher’s meat, and it’s just a leg of one of your own sheep, Drumcarro. Cry upon the lassie, Kirsteen, and she’ll bring it ben in a moment. We’re so used to womenfolk in this house, we just forget a man’s appetite. I can recommend the eggs, for they’re all our own laying. Two-three hens just makes all the difference in a house; ye never perceive their feeding, and there’s aye a fresh egg for an occasion. And so you were pleased with your ball? I’m glad of it, for it’s often not the case when lassies are young and have no acquaintance with the world. They expect ower much. They think they’re to get all the attention like the heroines in thae foolish story-books. But that’s a delusion that soon passes away. And then you’re thankful for what you get, which is a far more wholesome frame of mind.” Kirsteen assented to this with a grave face, and a little sigh for the beautiful visions of ideal pleasure which she had lost. But Mary bridled, and declared that all her expectations had been fulfilled. “I got a great deal of attention,” she said, “and perhaps I had not such grand fancies as other folk.” “I have bidden Glendochart to come and see us at Drumcarro. Ye’ll have to see to the spare cha’amer, and that he gets a good dinner,” said Mr. Douglas. “Him and me we have many things in common. He’s one of the best of his name, with a good record behind him--not to match with our auld Douglas line, but nothing to snuff at, and not far off the head of the house himsel’.” “You would be at the school together, Drumcarro,” Miss Eelen said. “No such a thing--he’s twenty years younger than me,” said Mr. Douglas angrily. “And I was at no schule, here or there, as ye might well mind.” “Twenty years! If there’s ten between ye that’s the most of it. There’s no ten between ye. When I was a young lass in my teens John Campbell was a bit toddling bairn, and ye were little mair, Drumcarro. Na, na, ye need not tell me. If there’s five, that’s the most. Ye might have been at the schule together and nothing out of the common. But he’s had none of the cares of a family, though maybe he has had as bad to bear; and a man that is not marriet has aye a younger look. I ken not why, for with women it’s just the contrair.” “Mr. Campbell is a very personable man,” said Mary. “I’m no judge of ages, but I would say he was just in middle life.” “It’s but little consequence what you say,” said her father roughly. “If Kirsteen was to express an opinion----” Kirsteen’s mind had a little wandered during this discussion. Glendochart’s age appeared to this young woman a subject quite unimportant. He was of the age of all the fathers and old friends. Had she been a modern girl she would have said he was a darling, but no such liberties were taken in her day.