Rob had not been so light of heart since he made that momentous decision about his profession which had so strangely changed his life. For the first time since then he felt himself an allowed and authorized person, not in disgrace or under disapprobation of all men, as he had hitherto been; and the permission to carry his drawing of the Kirkton to Miss Margaret “in a present” amused him, while it gave at the same time a certain sanction to his engagement to meet her, and show her the other productions of his pencil. Rob had his wits about him more than Margaret had, though not so much as his mother. He was aware that to ask a young lady to meet him at the burn, for what purpose soever, was not exactly what was becoming, and that the advantage he had taken of their childish friendship was perhaps not quite so “like a gentleman” as he wished to be. He could not, indeed, persuade himself that his mother was any authority in such a question; but still the fact that she thought it quite natural that he should carry on his old relations with Margaret, and even encouraged him to make the young lady a present, gave him a sort of fictitious satisfaction. He would affect to take his mother’s opinion as his authority, if his conduct was called in question, and thus her ignorance was a bulwark to him. He went out again after his broth, and worked diligently all the afternoon, though Mrs. Glen thought it very unnecessary. “’Twill just spoil it,” she said. “The like of you never knows where to stop: either you do nothing at all, or you do a hantle o’er much.” But on this point Rob took his own way. Certainly, even when you despise the opinion of those around, it is good to be thought well off. The moral atmosphere was lighter round him, and there was the pleasant prospect of meeting Margaret in the evening, and receiving the delightful incense of her admiration; a more agreeable way of filling up this interval of leisure could not have been devised, had his leisure been the most legitimate, the most natural in the world.