Like everyone else, she was very fond of Miss Esperance, and she often came to Remote to play with the little boys who whole-heartedly approved of her. Mr. Wycherly, too, was fond of Bonnie Margaret, and somehow, recently, she had seemed to come across him very often during his walks with Montagu. She would join them, and sometimes spend a whole long afternoon in the little copse sitting beside Mr. Wycherly at the foot of his favourite tree, while Montagu played at the brook. Very shyly and with many most becoming blushes, Margaret confided to Mr. Wycherly that she had met a nephew of his during her visits to her sister. Mr. Wycherly was not in the least interested in his nephew, but he was interested in anything Bonnie Margaret chose to talk about, and the nephew acquired a fictitious importance for this reason. This nephew was, Margaret carefully explained, an exceedingly clever young man, who had taken a good degree—but he didn’t want to take orders, and he hated school-mastering—he had tried it—and now he had gone into a friend’s business as a wine merchant, and his people were very much annoyed. What was Mr. Wycherly’s opinion on the subject? And didn’t he think it was very noble of this young man to earn his bread in this particular fashion? It had taken many meetings and much elaborate and roundabout explanation upon Margaret’s part before this final statement of the situation was reached; and Mr. Wycherly, having in the meantime heard complaints that Bonnie Margaret was very ill to please in the matter of a husband, began to put two and two together. Many swains had sighed at Margaret’s shrine, and she had received what her mother called "several quite good offers," but she would have nothing to say to any of them. She was in character fully as decided as Lady Alicia herself. But she was demure and gentle in manner, and instead of fighting for her own way, as is the custom of the strenuous, simply took it quietly, and without vehement declaration of any kind. When appealed to as to his opinion of the nobility of his nephew’s conduct in thus plunging into trade, Margaret and Mr. Wycherly were sitting on a low wall, watching Edmund and Mause and Montagu disport themselves in the hay-field it bordered. The summer sun was warm, and Margaret wore a floppy leghorn hat which threw a most becoming shade over her serious grey eyes; eyes with long black lashes in somewhat startling contrast to her very fair hair. Mr. Wycherly particularly admired her Greek profile, her short upper lip, the lovely oval of her cheek and chin. Still more did he appreciate her sweet consideration and gentleness; and for the first time since he came to live in Scotland he found himself wishing that he knew something of this nephew who so plainly occupied a prominent position in the thoughts of this kind and beautiful girl.