"Yes," he continued, after he had examined and cross-examined Vincent with regard to certain occurrences, "there is no doubt at all that George Bethune is a rank old impostor; but the person on whom he has mostly imposed, all his life through, has been—George Bethune. I suppose, now, every one of us has in his nature a certain amount of self-deception; it would be a pity if it weren’t so. But here is this man who has been gifted with a quite unlimited faculty of self-deception; and with a splendid imagination, too—the imagination of a poet, without a poet’s responsibilities; so that he lives in a world entirely of his own creation, and sees things just as he wants to see them. As I say, he has the imagination of a poet, and the unworldliness of a poet, without any one calling him to do anything to prove his powers; he is too busy constructing his own fanciful universe for himself; and all the common things of life—debts, bills, undertakings, and so forth—they have no existence for him. Ah, well, well," Mr. Thompson went on, as he lay back in his chair, and watched the blue curls of smoke from his cigar, "I don’t know whether to call it a pity or not. Sometimes one is inclined to envy him his happy temperament. I don’t know any human creature who has a braver spirit, whose conscience is clearer to himself, who can sleep with greater equanimity and content. Why should he mind what circumstances are around him when in a single second he can transport himself to the Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow or be off on a raid with Kinmont Willie? And there’s nothing that he will not seize if he has a mind to it—a sounding name, a tradition, a historical incident—why, he laid hold of the Bonnie mill-dams o’ Binnorie, carried them off bodily to Balloray, and I suppose wild horses wouldn’t tear from him the admission that Balloray never had anything to do with those mill-dams or the story of the two sisters——" "I know," said Vincent; "Maisrie told me about that." "Maisrie!" said Mr. Thompson, with a return of his former impatience. "That is another of his fantasticalities. I tell you her name is Margaret——." "But she has been Maisrie to me, and Maisrie she will be to me always," Vincent made answer stoutly—for surely he had some right to speak on this matter too. "As I said this morning, it is only a pet name for Margaret; and if she chooses to use it, to please her grandfather, or to please herself even——" "Stay a moment: I want to show you something." The banker put his hand into his breast-pocket; and pulled out an envelope. "Not the photograph?" said Vincent, rather breathlessly. Mr. Thompson smiled in his quiet, sagacious way. "When I mentioned this portrait to you to-day," said he, "I saw something in your eyes—though you were too modest to put your request into words. Well, I have brought it; here it is; and if you’ll look at the foot you’ll see that the little Omahussy signs herself, as she ought to sign herself, ’Margaret Bethune.’"