So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso, where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the captain's, and he urged their early marriage. Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought it best not to urge her further. Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street, and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme. Margaret could _feel_ that he was all wrong, but she could not reason about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way. But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing, Ronald, an' it is at the _guid bargains_ I aye pause an' ponder." The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good money after bad." It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely. She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to help him.