This unfortunately was not true; but the young man felt that to allow himself to be saddled with a sort of governor in the shape of the late lord's servant was more than could be required of him; and that he must assert himself before it was too late. "You will settle that at your pleasure, my lord," said old Milnathort, and he went away shutting the door carefully, his steady, slow step echoing along the passage. The man was not apparently in the least daunted by Walter's irritation. He went on mechanically, lightly brushing out a crease, and unfolding the coat with that affectionate care which a good servant bestows upon good clothes. Walter longed to have brought his old coat with him that everything should not have been so distressingly new. "That will do," he said, "that will do. It is a pity to give you so much trouble when, as I tell you, I have another man engaged." "It is no trouble, my lord; it is a pleasure. I came out of attachment to the family. I've been many years about my late lord. And however ye may remind yourself that you are but a servant, and service is no heritage, yet it's not easy to keep yourself from becoming attached." "My good man," said Walter, half impatient, half touched, "you never saw me in your life before. I can't see how you can have any attachment to me." Symington had a long face, with a somewhat lugubrious expression, contradicted by the twinkle of a pair of humorous, deep-set eyes. He gave a glance up at Walter from where he stood fondling the lappels of the new coat. "There are many kinds of attachments, my lord," he said oracularly; "some to the person and some to the race. For a number of years past I have, so to speak, just identified myself with the Erradeens. It's not common in England, so far as I can hear, but it's just our old Scots way. I will take no other service. So, being free, if your lordship pleases, I will just look after your lordship's things till the other man comes." Walter perceived in a moment by the way Symington said these words that he had no faith whatever in the other man. He submitted accordingly to the ministrations of the family retainer, with a great deal of his old impatience, tempered by a sense of the humour of the situation. It seemed that he was never to have any control over himself. He had barely escaped from the tutelage of home when he fell into this other which was much more rigid. "Poor mother!" he said to himself, with an affectionate recollection of her many cares, her anxious watchfulness; and laughed to himself at the thought that she was being avenged. Mr. Milnathort's table was handsome and liberal; the meal even too abundant for the solitary pair who sat alone at a corner of the large table, amid a blaze of light. Miss Milnathort did not appear. "She never comes down. She has never sat down at table since she had her accident, and that is thirty years since."