“Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it.”

“Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!” said Mr. Home. “Look up, Polly! Answer this ‘braw wooer;’ send him away!”

She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.

“Papa, I love you both,” said she; “I can take care of you both. I need not send Graham away⁠—he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,” she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.

“He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me,” still persisted Mr. Home. “I don’t want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell him to march.”