"Yes, yes, why not?" he said; and then he went on, absently: "Yet my nerve is not what it was. Sometimes I hesitate. It would grieve me more than I can say if Maisrie here were to be disappointed. It is a long time since I was in the country; perhaps I remember only the beautiful things; and it is only of these she has heard me talk. When Sturrock thinks of the old home, the dappled hills shine for him: you remember, Maisrie?— ’Oh native land! Oh cherished home, I’ve sailed across the sea, And, though my wandering footsteps roam, My heart still turns to thee! My thoughts and dreams are sweet and bright With dew which love distils; While every gleam of golden light Falls on the Scottish hills.’ He forgets the mists and the rain and the darkened days. And you, Maisrie, you have been brought up under fair blue skies; you have never learnt how sombre days and wild and driving clouds stir the imagination; perhaps, if you stood in the very street where the ’bonnie Earl o’ Moray came sounding through the town,’ you would see only the wet pavements and the dull windows; and you might turn to me and say ’Is this what you have talked about to me, grandfather?’" Then all of a sudden he seemed to throw off this despondent fit as by a violent effort. "No, no!" said he, in quite a different tone. "I will not believe but that there are still yellow cornfields and silver lakes in bonnie Scotland, and the lark singing as high in the heavens as when Tannahill, or Hogg, or Motherwell paused to listen. I will show you the red rowans hanging from the mountain crag, and the golden bracken down by the side of the burn; and if we go still further away—to the lonely islands of the western seas—then you must learn to forget the soft prettiness of the sunnier south, and to let the mysterious charm of isolation hold you, and the majesty of the darkened mountains, and the pathetic beauty of the wandering veils of rain. I would sooner forget the mother that bore me," he said, with a proud ring in his voice, "than believe that bonnie Scotland had lost her glamour and wonder and fascination. And you would be no holiday-tourist, Maisrie; you belong by blood to the ’land of wild weather’; and imagination is part of the dowry of youth. No, no; I do not fear. I—I made a mistake when I said I was afraid—I am not afraid of you, Maisrie—not afraid of you—you have the fine sympathy, the intelligence, the quick imagination that I can trust—I am not afraid of you, Maisrie——" "You need not be afraid, grandfather," the girl said, gently—for she saw that he was somewhat disturbed. "Why should you be afraid, grandfather? I shall be looking with your eyes."