"It is the nicest thing that has happened for a long time. I have just thought of another thing--it is a solution of the superfluous furniture problem. "Langhope Manse is large and the stipend small, and I don't think Kirsty would mind taking our furniture. I shall ask her delicately, using 'tack.'" _CHAPTER XVIII_ THE END OF AN OLD SONG The Setons left Glasgow in the end of May. On the evening before they left Thomas and Billy made a formal farewell visit, on the invitation of Elizabeth and Buff, who were holding high revel in the dismantled house. Mr. Seton had gone to stay with friends, who could be trusted to look after him very carefully, until the bustle and discomfort of the removal was over. Buff was to have gone with his father, but he begged so hard to be allowed to stay and help that in spite of Marget's opposition (she held her own views on his helpfulness), his sister gave in. He and his two friends had enjoyed a full and satisfying week among wooden crates and furniture vans, and were sincerely sorry that the halcyon time was nearly over; in fact, Thomas had been heard to remark, "When I'm a man I'll flit every month." Poor Thomas, in spite of the flitting, felt very low in spirits. He had done his best to dissuade the Setons from leaving Glasgow. Every morning for a week he had come in primed with a fresh objection. Had Elizabeth, he asked, thought what it meant to live so far from a station? Had Elizabeth thought what it meant to be at the mercy of oil-lamps? "Mamma" said that six weeks of Arran in the summer was more than enough of the country. Had Elizabeth thought that she would never get any servants to stay? He did not conceal from them that "Mamma" thought the whole project "very daftlike." To judge from Thomas, "Mamma" must have expressed herself with some vigour, and Elizabeth could only hope that that placid lady would never know the use her son had made of her name and conversation. But the efforts of Thomas had been unavailing, and the last evening had come. Thomas and Billy, feeling the solemnity of the occasion needed some expression, did not open the door and run in as was their custom, but reached up and rang a peal at the bell, a peal that clanged like a challenge through the empty house and brought Ellen hurrying up the kitchen stairs, expecting a telegram at the very least. Finding only the familiar figures of Thomas and Billy, she murmured to herself, "What next, I wonder?" and leading the way to the drawing-room, announced the illustrious couple. Buff greeted them with a joyous shout. "Come on. I helped to fry the potatoes." The supper had been chosen by the boys themselves, and consisted of sausages and fried potatoes, jam tartlets and tinned pineapple, with home-made toffee to follow; also two syphons of lemonade.