“Oh,” she said, “it was what I aye hoped, but I daredna ask. My wee man will not have the hard life we’ve all been born to? Oh, I’m joyful, joyful of that! not for the money, Miss Heriot; but if you knew the difference of him and you, folk that have been gently nurtured as they say in books, from the like of us; gently nurtured, that’s what I would like--learned to speak soft, and think of others’ feelings, and move quiet and be like him and you. Without money that cannot be; if he’s to be brought up to work for his living like the rest, that cannot be.” “If you mean the rest of my bairns, Isabell,” said her mother, hotly, “your wean will be real well off if he’s like them. An honest working man may look any gentleman in the face. I’ve aye trained ye up to that.” “Ay, mother,” said Isabell, “that’s very true; but a gentleman’s son is no like a ploughman’s son; and oh, if my boy might be like his father! They’ll no let me speak of his father; but Miss Heriot, I may to you.” “Yes,” said Marjory, faintly. A fastidious cloud had come over her again. Tom, poor Tom, had not been to her an ideal being; it seemed to her that his education, and the result of it, might both be improved in a new human creature. But poor Isabell thought differently; a new world opened before her eyes, which were full of tears, grateful tears, made sweet by an unexpected and unlooked for gladness. “Oh, if I could live to see it!” she sighed, with a quivering smile. It was the first time that such a possibility had occurred to her. She threw a wistful glance into the future, which she must never see, and for one moment longed to live. Then for another moment the tears turned salt and bitter. “But that mayna be,” she added, still more low. No, she could not live to see it; but still this sunset gleam had given a gentle radiance to her life. “A little siller is aye a good thing. I’m very glad the bairn’s provided for,” said the old woman, looking at Marjory keenly. Pride kept her from further inquiry; her ears were keenly open, and her mind intent to find out more fully what was meant; but she would have died sooner than ask a question. Somehow, however, this simple speech of Marjory’s changed the aspect of affairs to Isabell’s mother. It gave a probability to the story of the marriage, which it had never hitherto possessed in her eyes; the moment that money is involved it gives reality to everything. The old woman’s feeling was very different from that vague sense of beatitude with which Isabell herself regarded the possibility of her child’s future wealth; but Marjory was instantly aware of the deepened interest, the increased disposition to believe the story true. She went on to comment on what news she had of the search in which everything was involved.