Mr. Sclater was not at all anxious to hasten the marriage; he would much rather, in fact, have it put off, at least until Gibbie should have taken his degree. The laird started up in a rage, but the room was so small that he sat down again. The minister leaned back in his chair. He was too much displeased with the laird’s behaviour to lighten the matter for him by setting forth the advantages of having Sir Gibbie for a son-in-law.
“Mr. Sclater,” said the laird at length, “I am shocked, unspeakably shocked, at my daughter’s conduct. To leave the shelter of her father’s roof, in the middle of the night, and—”
“About seven o’clock in the evening,” interjected Mr. Sclater.
“—and take refuge with strangers!” continued the laird.
“By no means strangers, Mr. Galbraith!” said the minister. “You drive your daughter from your house, and are then shocked to find she has taken refuge with friends!”
“She is an unnatural child. She knows well enough what I think of her, and what reason she has given me so to think.”
“When a man happens to be alone in any opinion,” remarked the minister, “even if the opinion should be of his own daughter, the probabilities are he is wrong. Every one but yourself has the deepest regard for Miss Galbraith.”
“She has always cultivated strangely objectionable friendships,” said the laird.
“For my own part,” said the minister, as if heedless of the laird’s last remark, “although I believe she has no dowry, and there are reasons besides why the connection should not be desirable, I do not know a lady I should prefer for a wife to my ward.”
The minister’s plain speaking was not without effect upon the laird. It made him uncomfortable. It is only when the conscience is wide awake and regnant that it can be appealed to without giving a cry for response. Again he sat silent a while. Then gathering all the pomp and stiffness at his command,