against the opposing faction--namely the grandmother.

A second seat--not over easy, but comfortable enough, being simply
a wide arm-chair of elm, with a cushion covered in horse-hair,
stood at the opposite corner of the fire. This was the laird's
seat, at the moment, as generally all the morning till dinner-time,
empty: Cosmo, not once looking up, walked straight to it,
diagonally across the floor, and seated himself like one verily
lost in thought. Now and then, as she peeled, Grizzie would cast a
keen glance at him out of her bright blue eyes, round whose fire
the wrinkles had gathered like ashes: those eyes were sweet and
pleasant, and the expression of her face was one of lovely
devotion; but otherwise she was far from beautiful. She gave a grim
smile to herself every time she glanced up at him from her
potatoes, as much as to say she knew well enough what he was
thinking, though no one else did. "He'll be a man yet!" she said to
herself.

The old lady also now and then looked over her Stocking at the boy,
where he sat with his back to the white deal dresser, ornate with
homeliest dishes.

"It'll be lang or ye fill that chair, Cossie, my man!" she said at
length,--but not with the smile of play, rather with the look of
admonition, as if it was the boy's first duty to grow in breadth in
order to fill the chair, and restore the symmetry of the world.

Cosmo glanced up, but did not speak, and presently was lost again
in the thoughts from which his grandmother had roused him as one is
roused by a jolt on the road.