I am drawing near the end of my course. I earnestly desire to have my mind preserved from the resentment and pain of being again brought into immediate contact with those who have so deeply injured me, or with their representatives. For this reason I have never seen Halbert Graeme, and am firmly resolved not to see him. The lad shall have full justice; I will refuse him no needful help in any profession he may choose; but though he is the last representative of our ancient name, he shall not be the heir of Mossgray. I have given Monikie all freedom in providing for him, in a way becoming his father’s son--but he is not mine. I do this with no feeling of revenge towards the dead, but I cannot adopt or cherish the son of Charlie Graeme. And Lilias--I have heard that she too has one child--a girl called by her own name--but these also I cannot dare ever to look upon. Edward Maxwell is dead; he has lived the life of a weakling, and his widow remains in England where he died. I have learned now, in my old age, to think of the Lilias of my imagination as of one who died in the early fragrance of youth, and almost to dream that her gentle, shadowy presence hovers near me, in the twilight of summer nights, when the stately flowers which bear her name shine like gleams of moonlight in the dim borders of my garden. I can bear the neighbourhood of these lilies now; their pensive beauty soothes me; but though the softening shadows of memory and years have enshrined this lily of my youth, in that radiance of tender melancholy with which we surround those who have gone down early to peaceful graves, I yet cannot and dare not enter the presence of that Lilias who has made me a solitary, joyless man. Let me be kept from them and from their children. I cannot endure the pain which their very names inflict upon me--I must always avoid and shun them. I wish them well--all health, and peace, and happiness be with them, and a brighter lot than mine; but let me be left with my dreams; the sole remaining companions, which are with me in my old age, and were with me in my youth. Walter Johnstone is the only surviving member of our joyous boyish party. He is struggling still in the Maelstrom of care and business, maintaining his place well, as I hear, among his compeers, and training, as he can, a large family of sons and daughters. He still retains Greenshaw, but never visits it; for Walter’s wife and children are fashionables in their degree, and think it expedient, as my good friend Mrs Oswald tells me, to leave the gentle enchantment of distance and ignorance about the very minute property from which their father acquires the landed designation to which we attach a considerable share of importance in Scotland.