Yes--there was no landed family of them all which could boast a line so long and so unbroken as that of Mossgray. The encumbrances on the estate had gradually melted away during my frugal minority. I was able to maintain appropriately the position I had inherited. Only this one external matter of rank did Lilias want, and I had it, to lay it at her feet--the name itself acquired new honour and dignity, when my heart beat to anticipate the advent of a new lady of Mossgray, who should eclipse all who went before. I greatly affected Mr Johnstone’s company then. He was a shrewd man, if not a refined one; and albeit he did not possess that fearful command of words which strikes one with utter panic when one comes to the beginning of a speech of his fellow-craftsman the “Wanderer” of Wordsworth, he yet could manage to keep up a conversation tolerably well, by help of an occasional monosyllable from the other interlocutor--we became great friends. He gave me counsel about the management of my lands; he told me that Matthew Irving of Friarsford, whose tack was nearly out, had been holding his farm for some years past nearly rent free, so greatly had the land increased in value, since his father got the lease. He talked to me of foreign wars and home politics--I listened in happy unconsciousness, feeling only that I was conciliating the goodwill of the father of Lilias, and advancing slowly to my aim. Mr Johnstone was too shrewd a man not to perceive by and by what brought me so often, bashful and absorbed, into that corner of his parlour. The good man evidently believed at first that I sought the benefit and enlightenment of his conversation; but through a flood of random answers, and unhappy lack of comprehension on my part, of arguments which I never heard, his eyes were opened. He was by no means displeased, I fancied. I was “Mossgray” already, my income was good, my prospects better. I was altogether eligible for a son-in-law. And by and by, I thought I discovered that the Fendie young ladies, who bore Lilias company sometimes, looked at her with wicked secret laughs and whisperings when I entered the room. Could Lilias _guess_ herself? Alas, I could not tell! I was too self-conscious to be at ease with her, and she had always been shy to me.