"Ah, well," he made answer, evasively, but with perfect good humour, "it is a matter to be thought over. Indeed, I heard in New York of a similar volume being got together; but I may be first in the field after all. There is no immediate hurry. A thing of that kind must be thought over and considered. And indeed, my dear, I cannot go back to America at present; for my first and foremost intention is that you should begin to learn something of your native country. You must become familiar with the hills and the moorlands, with the roaring mountain-torrents, and the lonely islands amid the grey seas. For of what account is the accident of your birth? Omaha cannot claim you. There is Scotch blood in your veins, Maisrie—the oldest in the land; and you must see Dunfermline town, where the King sate ’drinking the blood-red wine’; and you must see Stirling Castle, and Edinburgh, and Holyrood, and Melrose Abbey. Nebraska has no claim over you—you, a Bethune of Balloray. And you have some Highland blood in your veins too, my dear; for if the Grants who intermarried with the Bethunes were not of the northern Grants whose proud motto is ’Stand fast, Craigellachie!’ none the less is Craig-Royston wild and Highland enough, as I hope to show you some day. And Lowland or Highland, Maisrie, you must wear the snood when you go north; a young Scotch lass should wear the snood; yes, yes, the bit of blue ribbon will look well in your hair. Melrose," he rambled on, as he filled his glass again, "and Maxwellton Braes; Yarrow’s Banks; and fair Kirkconnel Lea: a storied country: romance, pathos, tragic and deathless music conjured up at every footstep. Instead of the St. Lawrence, you shall have the murmur of the Tweed: instead of Brooklyn—the song-haunted shores of Colonsay! But there is one place that with my will you shall never visit—no, not while there are strangers and aliens there. You may wander all over Scotland—north, south, east, and west—but never, never while I am alive, must you ask to see ’the bonny mill-dams o’ Balloray.’" She knew what he meant; she did not speak. But presently—perhaps to draw away his thoughts from that terrible law-suit which had had such disastrous consequences for him and his—she said—