“I never thought you would have married again,” said Mrs. Brown. “Mony a time it’s been said to me, ‘He’ll get another wife out yonder’--but I would never believe it. I just could not think it true. Eh man, when ye had a bonny dochter o’ your ain grown up, and just real well qualified to be the mistress of her faither’s house----” “Jane,” said Mr. Rowland, with seriousness, “I have a great regard for you. You’ve been, no doubt, a careful guardian of the children--but I cannot answer to you for what I do.” “Na, na, I never imagined it. Ye just acted to please your ain sel’, considering nobody. I’m no finding fault--I’m just wondering. And there’s the bairns. What think ye of them? Are they no a credit to any house? and a pleasure to the eyes, and a comfort to the heart?” She drew Marion forward with a vigorous hand, and placed the two side by side, confronting their father, who sat and gazed at them helplessly. Two well-grown, well-looking young creatures they were indeed. But Rowland gazed at them with a gradual dying out of all light from his face: his lip dropped, his eyes grew blank. What could he say? Nothing: there was little to find fault with, nothing that could be expressed in ordinary words. A sort of dread came over him as he looked at them, the boy and girl of whom he knew nothing; who had speculated on him, a being of whom they knew nothing, as to what he would do for them, send for them to India, which would be awful fun, or disappoint them of their lawful expectation of being his heirs. He might never have known what were their sentiments, and perhaps would have remained remorseful all his life, thinking himself to blame in not responding to their affection, but for this unintentional revelation. And now it astonished him to find himself in face of the two who had formed such clear opinions of their own as to what his duty was, and how he had deviated from it. They thought his duty was to take care of and provide for them--and he thought their duty was to regard their unknown father with affection and submission. And neither one nor the other had come true. He could not make any reply to their aunt’s appeal. He got up and went to the window, and walked about the little room, knocking against the furniture. “This is a pokey little place you are in,” he said, by way of getting rid of some of the vexation in his mind. “I could have wished that you had been in a better house.” “It’s a very good house,” said Mrs. Brown. “This is just the femily parlour--but if ye’ll come up to the drawing-room, ye’ll see what a nice room it is. It’s just as pleasant a house as there is in Glasgow, if maybe no so big as in some of those new crescents and squares out on the Kelvin Road. But everybody knows that the Sauchiehall Road is one of the best pairts. What ails ye at the house? it is just a very good house, quite good enough for the bairns and me.”