Oliver would laugh and put up his hand, with a sense of guilt, to his dishevelled moustache, then let it travel further to the Ricquet-like tufts of his hair. He would look down with too tranquil deprecation at the handkerchief dangling by one end from his pocket. But though hair and handkerchief were remedied for the moment, they would be in a worse condition twenty times before the day was done. Oliver was also spasmodically awkward in his gestures, a peculiarity sufficiently noticeable in a well-made man who had taken his share of muscular exercise and learnt the noble art of self-defence. Fan’s consolation was that Oliver, though the reverse of a puppy or even alas! of an Adonis, was still unmistakably a gentleman in his most extraordinary _gaucheries_; and when he was roused and in earnest, his passion and determination mastered his mixture of indifference and nervousness, until the bodily movements responded to the spirit within, and acquired a certain untrammelled dignity and power. CHAPTER III. OLIVER’S ANNOUNCEMENT. THE brother and sister met with the ‘Here I am, Fan,’ and the ‘So you’ve got home, Oliver,’ of the thoroughly English brother and sister, who, however cordially attached and however much they may have to say to each other on particular occasions, rarely exceed such words—accompanying the grasp of the hand, and the kiss on the cheek, even on meeting after months of separation. Effusive speech and lavish caresses are not for the true representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race. Oliver, in writing to his sister, when his name was in the prize list, had so far forgotten his origin as to let his pen slip into the short regretful sentence, ‘He would have been pleased that I had not missed the mark.’ But even on paper he did not further specify the tie, and now Oliver gave no sign of remembrance, that it was the first time he had come home and failed to receive his father’s greeting. For the old man was yet alive, though on his death-bed eagerly watching for his son, when Oliver obeyed the summons which had last brought him to Friarton Mill. It did not follow by any means that Oliver forgot the past, though he remained dumb as he followed Fan to her room.