“Put a chair for Margaret by the fire, Aubrey,” she said, “the child will be cold coming through all those passages; that is the worst of an old house, there are so many passages, and a draught in every one of them. I would not say a word against old houses, which are of course all the fashion, and very picturesque, and all that; but I must say I think you suffer from draughts. And what good is the fireplace in the hall? the heat all goes up that big chimney. It does not come into the house at all. I would like hot-water pipes, but they are a great expense, and of course you would all tell me they were out of keeping. So is gas out of keeping. Oh, you need not cry out; I don’t mean in the drawing-room, of course, which is a thing only done in Scotland, and quite out of the question; but to wander about those passages in the dark, and never to stir a step without a candle in your hand! I think it a great trouble, I must allow.” “Your ancestral home, Miss Leslie,” said Mr. St. John, who had secured a place in front of the fire, “must be a true mediæval monument. I am very much interested in domestic architecture. And so I am sure you must be, familiar with two such houses--” “People who possess old houses seldom care for them,” said Aubrey, taking up a position on the other side. “You know what my aunt says about gas and hot-water pipes. Tell me,” he said, half whispering, stooping over her, to the great indignation of the clergyman, “what I must call you. I must reserve the endearing title of aunt for the family circle, but I can’t say Miss Leslie, you knew, for you are not Miss Leslie; and Margaret, _tout court_, would be a presumption.” “Everybody calls me Margaret,” she said. “That man did at Killin. I felt disposed to pitch him into the loch when I heard him; but probably,” said Aubrey, laughing, “there might have been two words to that, don’t you think? Perhaps, if it had come to a struggle, it would have been I who was most likely to taste the waters of the loch.” “Oh, Randal is very good-natured,” said Margaret, making an effort to recover herself, “and perhaps he would not have known what you meant if you had spoken about a loch. I never saw this house till just a little while ago,” she added to Mr. St. John, anxious to be civil. “I never was out of Fife.” “And the Northern architecture is different from ours; more rude, is it not? I have heard that people often get confused, and attach an earlier date to a building than it really has any right to.” “It is kind of you to say the man at Killin was good-natured,” said Aubrey, on the other side; “of course, you think _I_ would not have given him much trouble. It seemed to me that everybody showed an extraordinary amount of confidence in that man at Killin. He pretended to be fishing, but he never fished. I suspect his fishing related to--who shall we say--your little cousin? Nay, I am making a mistake again; I always forget that you belong to the previous generation--your niece.”