When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with as much circumstance as he thought desirable told his story, beginning with the parts in it his uncle and Mrs. Catanach had taken. It was, however, he said, a principle in the history of the world that evil should bring forth good, and his poor little cockboat had been set adrift upon an ocean of blessing. For had he not been taken to the heart of one of the noblest and simplest of men, who had brought him up in honorable poverty and rectitude? When he had said this he turned to Duncan, who sat at his own table behind him with his pipes on a stool covered with a rich cloth by his side. "You all know my grandfather," he went on, "and you all respect him." At this rose a great shout. "I thank you, my friends," he continued. "My desire is that every soul upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail as if he were in blood that which he is in deed and in truth--my grandfather." A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they saw the old man bow his head upon his hands. He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had ever enjoyed--the privileges of toil and danger, with all their experiences of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of the confidence and companionship of honorable laboring men, and the understanding of their ways and thoughts and feelings; and, above all, the privilege of the friendship and instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed more than eternity could reveal. Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel's mother; how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held her peace; how for twenty years she had lived with her cousin, Miss Horn, and held her peace even from her; how at last, when, having succeeded to the property, she heard he was coming to the House, the thought of his nearness, yet unapproachableness--in this way at least he, the child of both, interpreted the result--so worked upon a worn and enfeebled frame that she died. Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother's death, came upon letters revealing the secret which she had all along known must exist, but after which, from love and respect for her cousin, she had never inquired. Last of all, he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs. Catanach had let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterward made affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his deathbed, with all necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and heir.