“To be sure, so I did. I say one thing one moment, and another the next; but, after all, they are much the same. So you sit by me, you may be quiet or make a noise--it will be all the same. Your noises are quiet, my Peggy. Your sleeve rustling, your hand moving, and a little impatience now and then, a start and a shake of your little head. These are noises an old man likes when Providence has given him a little girl.” “But really,” said Margaret, with a crease in her forehead, “really! I am grown-up-- I am not a little girl!” “Well, my Peggy! it will be so much the better for you,” he said, patting her sleeve. Margaret was vaguely chilled by this acquiescence, she could scarcely tell why; and the slight pain made her impatient, calling up a little auger, causeless and vague as itself. “Don’t, papa,” she said. “You are not like yourself. I don’t know what is the matter with you. Then, he may come?” “Yes, yes, at once,” said Sir Ludovic, with a dreamy smile; then he said, “But who is it?” as if this mattered little. Altogether, Margaret felt he was not like himself. “Do you remember Rob Glen, papa, the son of Mrs. Glen at Earl’s-lee? He used to play with me when I was a child; he was always very kind to me. Oh, don’t shake your head; you must mind him. Robert Glen at the farm?” “I _mind_, as you say--Scotch, Scotch, little Peggy; you should not be so Scotch--a Robert Glen who took the farm thirty or forty years ago. By-the-bye, the lease must be almost out; but how you are to get drawing or anything else out of a rough farmer--” “Papa!”-- Margaret put her hand upon his shoulder with impatience--“how could it be a Robert Glen of thirty or forty years ago? He is only a little older than me. He played with me when I was a little girl. He is perhaps the son, or he may be the grandson. He is a little older than me.”