“You are a Quixote, Lilias,” said Mossgray, “you have the epidemic generosity of youth upon you just now. When you are old, you will be wiser, perhaps--who can tell?--than to throw away your own prospects for the sake of a stranger whom you never saw.” “I do not know that it is well to be so wise,” said Lilias; “and I shall not learn from you, Mossgray.” “In this point I cannot answer for myself,” said the old man. “I have had an experience bitterer than usual; but let us not speak of that: we have had enough of Halbert Graeme. Who are to be your guests, Lilias, in our first essay at hospitality? have you determined?” “I specially beg an invitation for only one,” said Lilias; “and perhaps I do ill to ask that; but--I remember what it is to be poor and alone.” “And who is your one guest?” said Mossgray. “It is Helen Buchanan;--you have seen her, Mossgray; she is only a humble teacher in Fendie: but she is--” “I know her,” said the courteous Adam Graeme, to whom the word gentlewoman was, as to Hope Oswald, the highest of feminine titles. “Why should you hesitate to invite her, Lilias?” “Because,” said Lilias, with a smile, “the young ladies, the young landed ladies, Mossgray, may think her not good enough to meet them; but I made a promise to Hope Oswald to do what I could to honour Helen in the presence of Hope’s father.” “So Hope begins to scheme,” said Mossgray, smiling; “and the cause, Lilias?” “I think it has some connection with Mr William Oswald; indeed, Mrs Oswald almost told me that his father’s very stern resolution alone prevents--” “I understand,” said the old man, as Lilias hesitated and blushed with a not unnatural sympathy. “His father’s resolution--pooh! his father will break it.” “Do you think so, Mossgray?” “I begin to think, Lilias,” said Mossgray, turning to leave the room, “that resolutions are made only to be broken. May it fare with Mr Oswald as it has done with me; but remember,” and the old man looked back from the door with some humour in his face, “I do not mean in the matter of Halbert Graeme.” He did not mean it--he was still _resolved_; and yet when he returned to his study, it was to look long at the declining sunlight as it gilded the ancient carvings of Charlie’s chair, and to think gently of the dead. A certain poetic, half-superstitious feeling, which became him well, hindered him from restoring to its original position the old seat of Charlie Graeme. He suffered the sunshine to dwell upon it like a reconciling smile. CHAPTER XIII. Marry, he hath a proper person, a brain indifferent well garnished; comes of a good lineage; hath a bold spirit; poor, I deny not; but what doth your young gallant propose to himself, I pray you, but to try a wrestle and a fall with Fortune?--OLD PLAY.