"You shall not go away. And when it is your good fortune to meet with such a friend as that, you shall not wound him and insult him by refusing what he has given to you. No; but you will go at once and thank him." "I cannot—I cannot," she said, with both her hands trembling. "What shall I say? How can I thank him? If he were my own father or brother, how could I thank him?——" Her friend left the room for a second, and returned. "He is in the library alone," said she. "Go to him. And do not be so ungrateful as to even speak of refusing." The girl had no time to compose any speech. She walked to the library door, timidly tapped at it, and entered. The Laird was seated in an easy-chair, reading. When he saw her come in—he had been expecting a servant with coffee, probably—he instantly put aside his book. "Well, Miss Mary?" said he cheerfully. She hesitated. She could not speak; her throat was choking. And then, scarcely knowing what she did, she sank down before him, and put her head and her hands on his knees, and burst out crying and sobbing. And all that he could hear of any speech-making, or of any gratitude, or thanks, was only two words— "_My father!_" He put his hand gently on the soft black hair. "Child," said he, "it is nothing. I have kept my word." *CHAPTER X.* *BACKWARD THOUGHTS.* That was a beautiful morning on which we got up at an unearthly hour to see the Youth depart—all of us, that is to say, except Mary Avon. And yet she was not usually late. The Laird could not understand it. He kept walking from one room to another, or hovering about the hall; and when the breakfast-gong sounded, he refused to come in and take his place without his accustomed companion. But just at this moment whom should he behold entering by the open door but Mary Avon herself—laden with her artistic impedimenta? He pounced on her at once, and seized the canvas. "Bless me, lassie, what have ye been about? Have ye done all this this morning? Ye must have got up in the middle of the night!" It was but a rough sketch, after all—or the beginnings of a sketch, rather—of the wide, beautiful sea and mountain view from the garden of Castle Osprey. "I thought, sir," said she, in a somewhat hesitating way, "that you might perhaps be so kind as to accept from me those sketches I have made on board the _White Dove_—and—and if they were at Denny-mains, I should like to have the series complete—and—and it would naturally begin with a sketch from the garden here——" He looked at her for a moment, with a grave, perhaps wistful, kindness in his face. "My lass, I would rather have seen you at Denny-mains."