“I weel believe he never said a word. He was great friends with you, I mind well--oh, great friends. And so he wants to learn you to draw--or you want him? I see nae great objection,” said Bell, doubtfully. “He’s a young man, but then you’re a leddy far above him; and you’re old friends, as you say. I will not say but what I would rather he was marrit, Miss Margret; but I see nae great objection--” “Married!” said Margaret, her eyes bigger than ever with wonder and amusement--“married!” She laughed, though she could scarcely have told why. The idea amused her beyond measure. There was something piquant in it, something altogether absurd. Rob! But why the idea was so ridiculous she could not say. Bell looked at her in her laughter with a certain doubt. “Why should he no be married?” she said; “lads of that kind marry young--they’ve naething to wait for: the moment they get a kirk it’s a’ they can look for--very different from some. I dinna ken what Sir Ludovic may say,” she added, doubtfully. “Sir Ludovic has awfu’ high notions; a farmer’s son to learn a Leslie. I canna tell how he’ll take it.” “Bell!” cried Margaret, with indignation, “when you know it’s you that have the high notions! Papa would never think of anything of the kind; but if you go and put them into his head, and tell him what to think--” “Lord bless the bairn, me!” cried Bell, with the air of being deeply shocked; and then she got up and went back into her kitchen, which was her stronghold. Margaret, for her part, slightly discouraged, but still eager, stole up-stairs. If Bell was against her, it did not matter very much who was on her side. She went softly into the long room where her father was reading. Would it ever happen to her, she wondered, to sit still in one place and read, whatever might be going on--never thinking what was happening outside, untroubled whether it rained or was fine, whether it was summer or winter? Though she came in and roamed about softly, in a kind of subdued restlessness, looking over the book-shelves, and flitting from window to window, Sir Ludovic took no notice. With her own life so warm in her, it was stranger and stranger to Margaret to see that image of the calm of age; how strange it was! He had not moved even, since she came into the room, while she was so restless, so eager, thinking nothing in the world so important as her present fancy. When she had fluttered about for some time without attracting his notice, she grew impatient. “Papa, I want to speak to you,” she said. “Eh? Who is that--?” Sir Ludovic roused up as if he had been asleep; “you, little Peggy?” “Yes; were you sleeping? I wondered and wondered that you never saw me.” “I don’t think I was asleep,” he said, with a little confusion. “To tell the truth, I do get drowsy sometimes lately, and I don’t half like it,” he added, in an undertone.