After this the pleasure of the expedition grew less and less. Sir Ludovic, who met the party in Glasgow, took an opportunity to take Margaret aside, and talked to her with a grave face. “I hope you will see how wrong you are, Margaret,” he said, “about that lad. I have seen him, and he is as firm as a rock because of your encouragement. Do you think it is a right thing for a young girl like you to give such a man encouragement, and dispose of yourself without the knowledge of one of your friends? I told him I would never give my consent; but he as good as said he did not care a pin for my consent; that he had got yours, and that was all he wanted. But there is one thing I must insist upon, Margaret, and that is that you will hold no clandestine intercourse with him. It would not be--delicate, and it would not be honorable. It is only to save you that I don’t tell Jean. Jean would be neither to hold nor to bind. I don’t know what Jean might not do; but unless you will promise me that there shall be no correspondence, it is my duty to tell Jean.” “I don’t wish to have any correspondence,” said Margaret, drooping her head, with a burning blush. Oh, if they would but let her forget it all! But this was what they would not do. “If you will give me your promise to that”--he said; and in his pleasure at what seemed to him his little sister’s dutifulness, Sir Ludovic took her hand into his and gave a fatherly kiss on her forehead; all which his sisters contemplated with wondering eyes. “Dear Ludovic, how kind you are to darling Margaret!” cried Miss Grace, running to him and bestowing a kiss of her own by way of thanks. “I see no need for all this kissing,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “what is the meaning of it? I hope, Ludovic, you are not encouraging Margaret to make you her confessor, and to have secrets and mysteries from Grace and me, who are her natural guardians and her best friends!” CHAPTER XXXII.