He was very fond of her still; and if he had seen her cry would have been as ready to comfort her as if Margaret did not exist. But Margaret! Margaret was the queen of all. That white, soft, lady’s hand! Never any like it had lingered in Rob’s before. He was as happy as kings very seldom are, if all tales be true, and was no more ashamed of himself than if he had been a young monarch giving a throne to his chosen, as soon as he had got clear of Randal Burnside. CHAPTER XX. Randal returned to the Manse preoccupied and abstracted, his mother could not tell why. He brought her word that Sir Ludovic was in the same condition as before, neither better nor worse, and that the ladies had arrived; but he told no more. “Did you see nobody?” Mrs. Burnside asked. Perhaps in her heart she had hoped that her son might occupy some such post of comforter as Rob Glen had assumed, if not quite in the same way. “I saw old John,” said Randal; “the ladies were with their father, and John was so gruff that I fear things must be looking badly. He grumbled behind his hand, ‘What change could they expect in a day?’ as if your inquiries irritated him. I don’t wonder if they do. I think I should be worried too by constant questions, if any one was ill who belonged to me.” “Oh, don’t say that, Randal,” said Mrs. Burnside; “we must always pay proper respect. You may depend upon it, Jean and Grace are capable of saying that we paid no attention at all if we did not send twice a day. One must be upon one’s p’s and q’s with such people. And Margaret--you saw nothing of poor little Margaret? It is for her my heart bleeds. It is more a ploy than anything else for Jean and Grace.” The same remark had been made by Bell in the vaulted kitchen the very same night. “It’s just a ploy for the leddies,” Bell said; “I heard them say they were going to look out all the old things in the high room. You’ll see they’ll have a’ out, and make their regulations, wha’s to have this, and wha’s to have that; but I say it should all go to Miss Margret. She’ll have little enough else on the Leslie side of the house. I’ll speak to Mr. Leslie about it. He has not muckle to say, but he’s a just man.” “A wheen auld duds and rubbitsh,” said John, who was busy preparing still another trayful of provisions for his beleaguered city up-stairs.