"I say nothing against his motives, only that I think he acted wrongly. Valuable time has been lost; but clergymen are never good men of business, and Scripture-readers are like them, I suppose."
"Jim, I don't like to hear you speak like that; it's ungrateful. And what you mean by valuable time I can't conceive."
"I dare say you don't understand the value of time, leading the sort of life you do in a place where nobody ever knows the hour," said the youth, superciliously, as he glanced at his newly-acquired treasure; "but of course I mean time has been lost in investigating our family history."
"I'm quite content to be as I am," said Elsie. "If the history was known, it would probably be neither important nor interesting. I don't see how the watch will help you, Jim; and you know you won't have the likeness."
And she looked into the lad's face with her merry brown eyes. But Jim was on his high horse, and merely replied—
"I cannot say what I shall do all at once, but the matter shall be looked into at an early date."
Elsie smiled, as the rector and Scripture-reader had done—not visibly, indeed, as they had, yet Jim somehow felt he was being laughed at, which made him angry.
"He is a smart lad that, but I don't like him," said the rector, as he and Hendrick watched Elsie and Jim going down the avenue. "He wants to be a fine gentleman, and is ashamed of his father's portrait—an ill-looking fellow enough, it must be admitted."
"Aye, I didn't like that," said Hendrick; "but he is a steady boy, and may do well when the conceit has been taken out of him a wee bit."
"If only a 'wee bit' is taken, there will be what the people call a good little wee lock left. But I sincerely hope, for his own sake, that his pride will be taken out of him. He is insufferable."