"And in the meantime," said Mrs. Ellison (Vincent started: had that bewildering and far-reaching vision been revealed to him all in one brief, breathless second?) "in the meantime, Mr. Bethune, you must derive a great deal of comfort and solace from your literary labours." "My literary labours," said the old man, slowly and absently, "I am sorry to say, are mostly perfunctory and mechanical. They occupy attention and pass the time, however; and that is much. Perhaps I have written one or two small things which may survive me for a year or two; but if that should be so, it will be owing, not to any merit of their own, but to the patriotism of my countrymen. Nay, I have much to be thankful for,", he continued, in the same resigned fashion. "I have been spared much. If I had been a famous author in my younger days, I should now be reading the things I had written then with the knowledge that I was their only reader. I should be thinking of my contemporaries and saying ’At one time people spoke of me as now they are speaking of you.’ It is a kind of sad thing for a man to outlive his fame; for the public is a fickle-minded creature, and must have new distractions; but now I cannot complain of being forgotten, for I never did anything deserving of being remembered." "Grandfather," said Maisrie, "surely it is unfair of you to talk like that! Think of the many friends you have made through your writings." "Scotch friends, Maisrie, Scotch friends," he said. "I admit that. The Scotch are not among the forgetful ones of the earth. If you want to be made much of," he said, turning to Mrs. Ellison, "if you want to be regarded with a constant affection and gratitude, and to have your writings remembered and repeated, by the lasses at the kirn, by the ploughman in the field, by gentle and simple alike, then you must contrive to be born in Scotland. The Scottish heart beats warm, and is constant. If there is a bit of heather or a blue-bell placed on my grave, it will be by the hand of a kindly Scot." Dinner over, they went out and sate in the cool twilight and had coffee, while the steward was clearing away within. Mrs. Ellison, faithful to her promise to Lord Musselburgh, said she had not long to stay; but her nephew, having a certain scheme in his mind, would not let her go just yet; and by and bye, when the saloon had been lit up, he asked her, in a casual kind of fashion, whether before she went she would not like to hear Miss Bethune sing something. "Oh, I should like it of all things!" she replied instantly, with a reckless disregard of truth. Maisrie glanced at her grandfather. "Yes, certainly—why not?" said he. "Then," said their young host, "I propose we go in to the saloon again; it will be quieter." For there was still a plash of oars on the river, and an echoing call of voices in the meadows beyond.