But the curious thing was that despite all this talking about the projected pilgrimage, it never seemed to come any nearer. No mention of a date or even of any approximate time, was ever made. In like manner, their return to America, though the old gentleman spoke of it now and again as a fixed and definite and necessary thing, kept receding backwards and backwards into a perfectly nebulous future. The present moment was everything to old George Bethune, whether he was engaged with a roe-deer cutlet at a restaurant in Regent-street, or lighting his pipe and mixing his toddy on his return home, while he was descanting on Barbour, and Drummond, and Sir David Lindesay, or Ramsay, and Ferguson, and Burns. People were beginning to leave town; Vincent had received, and declined, an invitation to join a big house-party in Argyllshire, notwithstanding that it was to the same house that Mrs. Ellison and Lord Musselburgh were going; but old George Bethune and his granddaughter appeared to pay no heed to the changing times and seasons; their placid, uneventful life seemed quite enough for them. And was it not enough for this young man also, who had been admitted to be their constant associate and friend? Why should he vex himself about literary schemes that were none of his devising? Day by day he waved a good-morning to Maisrie as she came to water her flowers, and an answer came from her smiling eyes; sometimes he walked out into the parks in the afternoon, with her grandfather and herself, and ever he rejoiced to see that the fine peach-bloom on her cheek was surmounting the sun-tinge that had been left there by travel; then in the evening they had all London to choose from, as to where they should dine, with a quiet stroll homeward thereafter, to music, and dominoes, and careless talk. What more? The great outer world might go on its way, and welcome. But Master Vin was about to be startled out of this dreamful ease. At last there came an answer to the communication he had sent to the editor of the Western Scotsman, with many apologies for unavoidable delay: Mr. Anstruther, it appeared, had been in Canada, taking his annual holiday among his kinsmen and countrymen there.