Oh, what a temptation it was for Verna to give him a little sketch--such as she could so well have done--of the real Matty! Anyone who has had to sit by and hear a fool elevated into a saint by some still more foolish worshipper, will understand her secret exasperation. But there were a great many things to be taken into consideration. In the first place, Matilda’s melancholy aspect was much her best one--when she cried she did not require to talk and commit herself, as otherwise she must have done infallibly; and, in the second place, Verna knew that to attempt to keep her sister in subjection, without affording her the relief of a worshipper, was hopeless, and young Hepburn ranked high in her list of ways and means. She shook her head accordingly, subduing herself, and acquiesced in this noble picture of Matty; but added: “You must remember, Mr. Hepburn, how young she is; and even if she should not care for society for herself, she must, some time or other, see the advantage for her children. And we all have a taste for fine rooms and handsome furniture,” Verna added, with a princely air. “It is a weakness, no doubt; but the Bassetts are all famed for it. Matilda will never be happy till she has given a character to the house.” All this would have been infinitely comic to any man who had not been captivated by Mrs. Charles Heriot’s afflicted beauty. But young Hepburn was like most people in that condition; he accepted, as the most dignified truth, what would have appeared the most transparent nonsense in other circumstances. He did more than this; he allowed Marjory’s home and kingdom, in which he had worshipped her since ever he could remember, to be spoken of as “good enough for the old people,” and acquiesced in the fact that the Bassetts required something more magnificent, and that the house must have a character given to it, before it could become a fit habitation for Mrs. Charles and her sister. He was not a fool, nor unfaithful to his traditions; he was a great lover of poetry, the most intellectual person, by a long way (except the Minister, whose intellect took, as was right and natural, a Biblical form,) in the neighbourhood of Comlie. Few men in the East Neuk were to be compared to him in the way of accomplishments and general cultivation; but yet he was guilty of this foolishness and meanness without in the least being aware of it--or, at least, with an uneasy consciousness which he would not permit himself to be aware of. And yet his heart was not false to the ideal which had been his highest vision of excellence all his life. Had he spoken of Marjory, it would still have been with enthusiasm--though with that servility, which is common to men in love, he allowed it to be necessary that Mrs. Charles should “give a character” to her house. When Mrs. Charles appeared, however, and he had the honour so often accorded to him of escorting her round the garden (which Matilda, too, much preferred to the cliff) he made a