belonging to the house.  He looked at a few of them.  They were almost all old books, and such as may be found in many Scotch cottages; for instance, Boston’s Fourfold State, in which the ways of God and man may be seen through a fourfold fog; Erskine’s Divine Sonnets, which will repay the reader in laughter for the pain it costs his reverence, producing much the same effect that a Gothic cathedral might, reproduced by the pencil and from the remembrance of a Chinese artist, who had seen it once; Drelincourt on Death, with the famous ghost-hoax of De Foe, to help the bookseller to the sale of the unsaleable; the Scots Worthies, opening of itself at the memoir of Mr. Alexander Peden; the Pilgrim’s Progress, that wonderful inspiration, failing never save when the theologian would sometimes snatch the pen from the hand of the poet; Theron and Aspasio; Village Dialogues; and others of a like class.  To these must be added a rare edition of Blind Harry.  It was clear to Hugh, unable as he was fully to appreciate the wisdom of David, that it was not from such books as these that he had gathered it; yet such books as these formed all his store.  He turned from them, found his own, and sat down to read.  By and by David came in.

“I’m ower sune, I doubt, Mr. Sutherlan’.  I’m disturbin’ ye.”

“Not at all,” answered Hugh.  “Besides, I am not much in a reading mood this evening:  Mrs. Glasford has been annoying me again.”

“Poor body!  What’s she been sayin’ noo?”

Thinking to amuse David, Hugh recounted the short passage between them recorded above.  David, however, listened with a very different expression of countenance from what Hugh had anticipated; and, when he had finished, took up the conversation in a kind of apologetic tone.

“Weel, but ye see,” said he, folding his palms together, “she hasna’ jist had a’thegither fair play.  She does na come o’ a guid breed.  Man, it’s a fine thing to come o’ a guid breed.  They hae a hantle to answer for ‘at come o’ decent forbears.”

“I thought she brought the laird a good property,” said Hugh, not quite understanding David.

“Ow, ay, she brocht him gowpenfu’s o’ siller; but hoo was’t gotten?  An’ ye ken it’s no riches ’at ‘ill mak’ a guid breed—­’cep’ it be o’ maggots.  The richer cheese the mair maggots, ye ken.  Ye maunna speyk o’ this; but the mistress’s father was weel kent to hae made his siller by fardins and bawbees, in creepin’, crafty ways.  He was a bit merchan’ in Aberdeen, an’ aye keepit his thoom weel ahint the peint o’ the ellwan’, sae ‘at he made an inch or twa upo’ ilka yard he sauld.  Sae he took frae his soul, and pat intill his siller-bag, an’ had little to gie his dochter but a guid tocher.  Mr. Sutherlan’, it’s a fine thing to come o’ dacent fowk.  Noo, to luik at yersel’:  I ken naething aboot yer family; but ye seem at eesicht to come o’ a guid breed for the bodily part o’ ye.  That’s a sma’ matter; but frae what I ha’e seen—­an’