"As lang's I'm in your hoose an' in your service, sir, the door's
mine," retorted David, quietly.

The laird turned and rode away without another word. What passed
between him and his wife never transpired. Nothing more was said to
Hugh as long as he remained at Turriepuffit. But Margaret was never
sent for to the House after this, upon any occasion whatever. The
laird gave her a nod as often as he saw her; but the lady, if they
chanced to meet, took no notice of her. Margaret, on her part,
stood or passed with her eyes on the ground, and no further change
of countenance than a slight flush of discomfort.

The lessons went on as usual, and happy hours they were for all
those concerned. Often, in after years, and in far different
circumstances, the thoughts of Hugh reverted, with a painful
yearning, to the dim-lighted cottage, with its clay floor and its
deal table; to the earnest pair seated with him at the labours that
unfold the motions of the stars; and even to the homely, thickset,
but active form of Janet, and that peculiar smile of hers with
which, after an apparently snappish speech, spoken with her back to
the person addressed, she would turn round her honest face
half-apologetically, and shine full upon some one or other of the
three, whom she honoured with her whole heart and soul, and who, she
feared, might be offended at what she called her "hame-ower fashion
of speaking." Indeed it was wonderful what a share the motherhood
of this woman, incapable as she was of entering into the
intellectual occupations of the others, had in producing that sense
of home-blessedness, which inwrapt Hugh also in the folds of its
hospitality, and drew him towards its heart. Certain it is that not