But he's
got no such notion. He comes here because, being human,
he's got to open his mouth some time or other, I suppose;
but it's my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody
else in his mind's eye at present. He doesn't go the
right way about it."
"H'm!" said John Murchison.
"He brought her a book the last time he came--what do
you think the name of it was? The something or other of
Plato! Do you call that a natural gift from a young man
who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if I know
anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer
for a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I'd
Plato him to the rightabout if it was me!"
"She might read worse than Plato," remarked John.
"Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She's your own daughter
for outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man!
We'll just say 'How d'ye do?' to him, and then start for
Abby's, John. I'm not easy in my mind about the baby,
and I haven't been over since the morning. Harry says
it's nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough
when I hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will
have to come here and rampage, I suppose, till they're
clear of it. There's some use in grandmothers, if I do
say it myself!"
CHAPTER XIV
If anyone had told Mr Hugh Finlay, while he was pursuing
his rigorous path to the ideals of the University of
Edinburgh, that the first notable interest of his life
in the calling and the country to which even then he had
given his future would lie in his relations with any
woman, he would have treated the prediction as mere folly.
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