"Why should I do that? Donald ought to have told me where he was going on the Sabbath. It will be a black day when I have to go to servants for information about my son." "Poor Donald! he cannot do right whatever he does. I dare say he only went with Matthew Ballantyne to his father's place near Rothesay. You will be getting a letter from him in the morning." "I would rather have seen him where he ought to have been." "In the _Church of the Disciples_?" "Even so." "You are all wrong. The boys would be on the water or climbing the mountains. They were in God's holiest temple. I hope you don't even the _Church of the Disciples_ with it!" "This, or that, Jessy, Donald ought to have been in the Kirk." "Maybe he was at Matthew's Kirk. Dr. Ward is preaching there now, and both Matthew and Donald think a deal of him." "I dare say. Donald's father is always last. He would rather hear any one preach than his father." "There's a reason for that. He does not see the others in their daily life. They don't thwart his wishes and scorn his hopes and set him to work that he hates. He sees them only in the pulpit, where they have pulpit grace and pulpit manners." "I have always treated Donald with loving kindness." "To be sure, when Donald walked the narrow chalk line you made for him. You had your own will. You wanted to be a minister and no one hindered you." "How do you know, Jessy, that I wanted to be a minister?" "Because you could not be happy unless you had power, and spiritual power was all you could lay your hands on. Donald was willing to go either to the sea or the army. What for wouldn't you give him his desire?" "I have told you his life is all the Macraes have to build upon." "You yourself were in the same position before Donald was born." "Yes, and so I chose the salvation of the ministry." "You had the 'call' thereto. You liked the salvation of the ministry. Donald could not take it, so you tied him to a counting desk. It was like harnessing a stag to a plough. But you'll take your own way, no matter where it leads you. So I'll say no more." "Thank you, Jessy. If you would consider the subject closed, I----" "I will do no such thing. I shall speak for Donald whenever I can, in season or out of season. There is a letter for you from Lady Cramer. It came this morning." Dr. Macrae took it with a touch of respect, and read it twice over before he spoke of its contents, though Mrs. Caird and Marion had their part in its message. Finally, he laid it down and, handing his cup to be refilled, he said: "Jessy, at six o'clock this evening, Lady Cramer will send a carriage for me. She wishes me to stay until Wednesday afternoon, then she intends coming to pay her call of welcome to you and Marion, and I will return with her." "So she is wanting you for the most part of two days. What for? She has her lawyers, and councillors, and her stepson."