Mr. Charles Heriot had not come to the High Street without an object. He had left Pitcomlie on the morning after Marjory left it, and had proceeded straight to his house in Edinburgh to review the capabilities of George Square; and he had not been very well satisfied with those capabilities. The house had not been inhabited since it had been in his possession. It was an excellent old-fashioned house, worth a dozen of the ordinary habitations which fall to your lot and mine, dear reader; but it was furnished with mere chairs and tables, bookcases and side-boards, not with any associations or kindly customs of use and wont. There was some old spindle-legged furniture, which had belonged to some Leddy Pitcomlie in the beginning of last century, with which Marjory could have made a quaint corner to live in, in one part, at least, of the chilly, uninhabited drawing-room, converting it all at once into such a chamber as some Jacobite lady might have received the Chevalier in, or where Mrs. Anne Keith might have discoursed to young Walter Scott. But Mr. Charles’s imagination was dulled by the vexations and embarrassments that possessed him, and he could not realize this; and his decision about George Square was that it would not do. The chain of habit was very hard to break with Mr. Charles; but when once broken, he was impatient, and almost lawless, rushing into any novelty that presented itself. The novelty in this case, however, was not extravagant. What he did was simply to take a house in St. Andrew’s for the summer; and it was this which he had come to intimate to the household in the High Street. “Not but what Marjory would be very happy with you, poor thing,” he said to Aunt Jean; “perhaps more happy than I can hope to see her; but still it will be more of a change. After griefs like hers, and all that has happened, I have always heard that a change was the best thing; and as she’s used to me and my ways--” “You need not apologize, Chairles Heriot,” said the old lady. “If I ever deluded myself I was to get a companion, it’s best to undeceive me; but I did not delude myself. I’m used to live alone, and no doubt after the first I would have gone back to my crabbed ways. But there’s one thing I must say. I’m fond of the girl, though she maybe does not give me credit for it, and she shall have all I’ve got to leave; I said in my haste she was my natural heir, and too natural, and a Miss Heriot doomed, all her days, like me. But mind this, if you take May away, I’ll no have her back. I give her to you on one condition, and that is, that you’ll marry her well. Marry that girrl, and marry her well, and you’ll have my blessing, and I’ll think better of ye, Chairles, than I’ve ever thought all your days.” “Marry her, and marry her well!” cried Mr. Charles, in dismay; “and how am I to do that? I have never married myself, and neither have you.”