‘Three weeks; but I may take a month.’ An unreasonable jealousy of his cousin sprang up in Alec’s breast at that moment. Five minutes before he was perfectly satisfied with his lot; now, because another occupied a more favourable position than himself, he was miserable. He had been able to meet Laura nearly every day; but this fellow was to live under the same roof with her, to eat at the same table, to breathe the same air. To see her and talk to her would be his rival’s daily, hourly privilege. ‘Splendid hills!’ said Semple. Alec made no reply. The scenery was too sacred a subject to be discussed with one like Semple. ‘What do you do with yourself all day?’ asked the new-comer. ‘Oh, I take a swim in the morning, give the boys their lessons from ten to one; then I generally take a row, or a walk, or read some Horace.’ ‘I should think you’d get dreadfully tired of it, after a bit. There are no places where they play tennis, I suppose?’ ‘Not that I know of.’ ‘I expect I shall find it rather dull.’ Another jealous pang shot through Alec’s heart. Laura and his cousin were agreed on this point. What more natural than that they should amuse each other? In a day or two Semple would be on better terms with Laura than he was himself. Of course he would fall in love with her--and she? Anyone watching the course of affairs at Glendhu would have thought that Alec’s foreboding was in a fair way of being realized. Laura was very gracious to her guardian’s nephew, and overlooked in the prettiest manner his little vulgarities. The two were constantly together, and neither seemed to feel the want of a more extended circle of acquaintance. It was nobody’s fault, for Semple had been invited to Glendhu before Mr. Taylor’s death had caused Laura to become a member of Mr. Lindsay’s family; but Miss Lindsay determined that she would at least introduce another guest into the house. She wrote to Alec’s sister, and asked her to spend a fortnight at Loch Long. When the invitation reached the Castle Farm, Margaret’s first impulse was to decline it without saying anything to her father, partly out of shyness and a sense of the deficiencies in her wardrobe, partly because she could not easily at that season be spared from the farm. But when Mr. Lindsay asked if there was anything in her aunt’s letter, Margaret felt bound to mention the matter to him; and he at once insisted upon her going. Margaret’s advent, however, made little practical difference in the usual order of things at Glendhu. Mr. Semple at first offered her a share of his attentions; but she received them so coldly that he soon ceased to trouble himself about her, and devoted himself to Laura as before, while Margaret seemed perfectly contented with her own society when Miss Lindsay was not with her guests. There was little intimacy between the two girls, and the blame of this could not fairly be attributed to Laura.