she had been a good steady lass, there had been nothing to find fault with; but to think of a daughter like Jane filled the good man with horror. What could he do with her? What could Evelyn do with her? Cold beads of perspiration came out on his forehead. And then the lout of a boy! This was how he had got to think of them who ought to have been the stars of his horizon. And it would not be their fault, it would be his fault. He was thankful to the bottom of his heart that he would see them first, and get the shock over, and have time to think how it could be broken to Evelyn. But he was not the less afraid of the first sight of them, afraid of proving all his prognostications true. He had not warned his sister-in-law of his arrival, and it was again an escape to him to postpone the meeting till next day, and in the meantime to go to the best hotel he could find. This was many years ago, and I don’t know what may be the case now: but then the hotels in Glasgow were not very excellent, that great city being, I suppose, too much occupied with its manifold business to make preparation for tourists and idle visitors as Edinburgh does; and Mr. Rowland did not find himself in the lap of luxury to which that masterful rich man was accustomed. This probably discouraged him still more, for it must be said that next morning, instead of going to see his children, he took an early train and went down to Rosmore, thus putting off for another day the possibility of ascertaining definitely what there was to fear. He was conscious that it was a cowardly thing to do: and it was an unnatural thing--heartless, even, some people might say; but then his terrors for the moment had taken the place of his merely instinctive and quite undeveloped paternal love.