"You know, Father, it would be doing Langhope a really good turn to recommend Mr. Hamilton as their minister. How do I know, Arthur? I just know. His father was a Free Kirk minister, so he has been well brought up, and I know exactly the kind of sermons he will preach--solid well-reasoned discourses, with now and again an anecdote about the 'great Dr. Chalmers,' and with here and there a reference to 'the sainted Dr. Andrew Bonar' or 'Dr. Wilson of the Barclay.' Fine Free Kirk discourses. Such as you and I love, Father." Her father shook his head at her; and Arthur, as he lit a cigarette, remarked that it was all Chinese to him. Elizabeth sat down on the arm of her father's chair. "You had quite a success to-night, Arthur," she said kindly. "Mr. Christie called you a 'gentlemanly fellow,' and Mrs. Christie said, speaking for herself, she had no objection to the Cockney accent, she rather liked it! And oh! Father, your friend Mr. M'Cann was there. You know who I mean? He talked to me quite a lot. He has been politic-ing down in Ayrshire, and he told me that he rather reminds himself of the Covenanters at their best--Alexander Peden I think was the one he named." Mr. Seton was carrying Guy Mannering to its place, but he stopped and said, "_The wretched fellow!_" The utter wrath and disgust in his tone made his listeners shout with laughter, and Elizabeth said: "Father, I love you. 'Cos why?" Mr. Seton, still sore at this defiling of his idols, only grunted in reply. "Because you are not too much of a saint after all. Oh! _don't turn out the lights!_" _CHAPTER XV_ "There was a lady once, 'tis an old story, That would not be a queen, that would she not For all the mud in Egypt." _Henry VIII._ "It is funny to think," Elizabeth said, "that last Friday I was looking forward to your visit with horror." "Hospitable creature!" Arthur replied. "And now," she continued, "I can't remember what it was like not to know you." They were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner. Mr. Seton had gone out, and Buff was asleep after such an hour of crowded life as seldom fell to his lot. He had been very down at the thought of losing his friend, and had looked so small and forlorn when he said his reluctant good-night, that Arthur, to lighten his gloom, asked him if he had ever taken part in a sea-fight, and being answered in the negative, had carried him upstairs shoulder-high. Then issued from the bathroom such a splashing of water, such gurgles of laughter and yells of triumph as Buff, a submarine, dashed from end to end of the large bath, torpedoing warships under Arthur's directions, that Elizabeth, Marget, and Ellen all rushed upstairs to say that if the performance did not stop at once the house would certainly be flooded.