affits before now, to wait upon
the daughter of their chieftain's master?"

"Again I thank you," said the glover, "and doubt neither your power nor
your will to protect my daughter, as well as myself. But an honourable
lady, the friend of Sir Patrick Charteris, hath offered her a safe place
of refuge without the risk of a toilsome journey through a desolate and
distracted country."

"Oh, ay, Sir Patrick Charteris," said Eachin, in a more reserved and
distant tone; "he must be preferred to all men, without doubt. He is
your friend, I think?"

Simon Glover longed to punish this affectation of a boy who had been
scolded four times a day for running into the street to see Sir Patrick
Charteris ride past; but he checked his spirit of repartee, and simply
said:

"Sir Patrick Charteris has been provost of Perth for seven years, and it
is likely is so still, since the magistrates are elected, not in Lent,
but at St. Martinmas."

"Ah, father Glover," said the youth, in his kinder and more familiar
mode of address, "you are so used to see the sumptuous shows and
pageants of Perth, that you would but little relish our barbarous
festival in comparison. What didst thou think of our ceremonial of
yesterday?"

"It was noble and touching," said the glover; "and to me, who knew your
father, most especially so. When you rested on the sword and looked
around you, methought I saw mine old friend Gilchrist MacIan arisen from
the dead and renewed in years and in strength."

"I played my part there boldly, I trust; and showed little of that
paltry apprentice boy whom you used to--use just as he deserved?"

"Eachin resembles Conachar," said the glover, "no more than a salmon
resembles a gar, though men say they are the same fish in a different
state, or than a butterfly resembles a grub."

"Thinkest thou that, while I was taking upon me the power which all
women love, I would have been myself an object for a maiden's eye to
rest upon? To speak plain, what would Catharine have thought of me in
the ceremonial?"

"We approach the shallows now," thought Simon Glover, "and without nice
pilotage we drive right on shore."

"Most women like show, Eachin; but I think my daughter Catharine be an
exception. She would rejoice in the good fortune of her household friend
and playmate; but she would not value the splendid MacIan, captain of
Clan Quhele, more than the orphan Conachar."

"She is ever generous and disinterested," replied the you