And, as it turned out, this evening proved to be one of those enjoyable moments. The small festivity to which Vincent had invited his new acquaintances was not in the least the haphazard affair he had half-intimated it to be; he had arranged it with care; they found themselves in a pretty room, with plenty of flowers on the table; while the little banquet itself was far more elaborate, both as regards food and wine, than there was any call for. The old gentleman did not protest; anything that happened—so long as it was pleasant—was welcome to him; and he declared the claret to be as excellent as any he had met with for years back. He could not understand why their youthful host would not join him (as if it were likely that Vincent was going to drink wine, now that he discovered that Maisrie Bethune drank only water!) but he had all the more for himself; and he waxed eloquent and enthusiastic on his favourite theme. "Why sir," said he, with a kind of proud elation in his tone, "I myself heard Henry Ward Beecher pronounce these words in the City Hall of Glasgow—’I have been reared in a country whose history is brief. So vast is it, that one might travel night and day for all the week, and yet scarcely touch historic ground. Its history is yet to be written; it is yet to be acted. But I come to this land, which, though small, is as full of memories as the heaven is full of stars, and almost as bright. There is not the most insignificant piece of water that does not make my heart thrill with some story of heroism, or some remembered poem; for not only has Scotland had the good fortune to have men who knew how to make heroic history, but she has reared those bards who have known how to sing their deeds. And every steep and every valley, and almost every single league on which my feet have trod, have made me feel as if I were walking in a dream. I never expected to find my eyes overflow with tears of gladness that I have been permitted, in the prime of life, to look upon this beloved land.’ Well spoken—nobly spoken! When I take my granddaughter here to visit her native country—for to that country she belongs, in all the essentials of blood and tradition and descent—I hope she will be in a similarly receptive mood; and will see, not the bare hills, not the lonely islands, not the desolate moors, but a land filled with the magic of association, and consecrated by the love and devotion of a thousand song-writers, known and unknown. I will say with Johnson ’That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Bannockburn, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona’—" "Not Bannockburn: Marathon, wasn’t it, grandfather?" said Maisrie, in her gentle way.