Thoroughly respectable they would all be by-and-by, on English 'Change and foreign market-place, and home counting-house--men who could lose some few thousands without much discomposure, and whose custom was to win them in tens and twenties. Yet one could pass so lightly over these ruddy faces, to rest upon that pale one among them, with its secret history--its grief--its hope--altogether forgetful that this was a hired clerk, and that the cubs were young gentlemen, taken in at nominal salaries, to learn their craft, and saving Mr. Sutor no inconsiderable annual sum in the salaries of other hired clerks, whose services his great business must have demanded but for them. But Archibald discharged his duty well: so well, that Mr. Lumsden formally pronounced his satisfaction--shortened his probation--and when he had been but a month in the Glasgow counting-house, bade him prepare immediately for his voyage. Archibald did so: wrote a long letter, and received a short note of leave-taking from his sister Isabel--the much-admired and gay Mrs. Duncombe--packed up his great outfit, placed in his pocketbook Mrs. Catherine's long letter of pithy counsel and tender kindliness; with these few words of grave farewell from Merkland; and on a heavy day in February, took his last look of the fair West Country, and its beautiful Clyde, and set sail for the New World. CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Lumsden, of Portoran, was seated in his study. The March wind was blustering boisterous and rude without, driving its precious dust, so valuable, as the proverb says, to farmer and seedsman, upon the window. The study of the Portoran Manse was by no means a luxurious place--there were no reclining library chairs in it: the formidable volumes that clothed its walls were such as no _dilettanti_ student would venture to engage withal. Its furniture was of the plainest. One large respectable looking glazed bookcase, and a multitude of auxiliary shelves, were piled to overflowing with books--books worth one's while to look at, though Russian leather and gilding were marvellously scant among them. That glorious row of tall vellum-covered folios--Miss Lumsden tells a story of them--how they were presented to her studious brother John, the day he was licensed, by a wealthy elder (to whom be all honor and laud, and many followers;) and how John, in the mightiness of his glee, forgetful of the new dignity of his Reverend, fairly danced round the ponderous volumes in overbrimming pride and exultation. Miss Lumsden's studious brother John, sits listening the while, with his own peculiar smile upon his face--a smile which gives to that dark, penetrating, intellectual countenance a singular fascination--there is something in the simplicity of its glee, which at once suits so well and contrasts so strangely with his strong and noble character.