"My dear Madam," retorted Mr. Wilson, positively shining with delight at his own opportunity of showing that his acquaintance was not confined to dead languages. "We have only put the 'Weib und Gesang' before the 'Wein'; and I am sure anyone who had the privilege of hearing Miss Marjory sing would do the same." She made him a little mock curtsey, but Mrs. Cameron would none of it, and cut a huge slice of cake. "No! no! minister; from the very beginning o' things men-folks cared more for their stomachs than their hearts. If Eve, poor body, had only given Adam a better dinner he wouldna have been wantin' to eat apples betwixt whiles, and a deal o' trouble might have been saved. But a woman's different. She takes it ill if a man doesn't fall in love with her; she's aye wantin'----" "I'm sure I don't want anything," put in Marjory, with her head in the air. "Don't be talkin' havers, child. I tell ye a woman's aye wantin' it. Auld as I am----" "My dear Madam," expostulated Mr. Wilson. "Haud your whist, minister," interrupted Mrs. Cameron, tartly; "what will you be knowing o' a woman's heart? I tell you she may be auld and grey, she may hae left half the pleasures o' this world behind her, she may hae been a wife for two score years, and spent her heart's bluid in rearing weans, but what's left o' the heart will be turnin' wi' regret to the time when the auld body who sits on the tither side o' the fire--girding at his food, maybe--was courtin' her. Or, maybe, when some ither auld body that's no at the tither side of the fire was courtin'. There's no sayin'." There was a silence: and then the old priest said under his breath: "_Amor a nullo amato amor perdona_." Mr. Wilson nodded his brown Brutus wig in assent. He did not mind that sort of Italian. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the humanities could understand so much. So they were merry over the cake and wine; merry even over the parting with it in obedience to the minister's Horatian order: "_Lusisti satis, editsi satis, alque bibisti, Tempus abire ibe est_"--which Mrs. Cameron insisted on having explained to her word by word. It was a complete exposition, she asserted, of the whole duty of man as viewed by men. To eat, to drink, to amuse themselves, and then to run away. That same evening, in the mirk end of the gloaming, Marjory, walking in the garden between the great borders of clove pinks which were sending out their fragrance to meet the coming night, heard the _feu de joie_, arranged by old John Macpherson to greet the laird's arrival, go off like the beginning of a battle. Half an hour afterwards Will Cameron returned, calling loudly for his supper, and full of enthusiasm. "Upon my word, Marjory, I think he is handsomer and more charming than ever." "Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," said the young lady, taking a leaf out of Mr. Gillespie's book. CHAPTER IV.