"I should say she could not do better. That is my continental view of the matter, Kep."
"Ah! but comrade, poor Madge has had a little affaire de coeur, which I did not tell you. Only a child's romance."
"That might alter the case," said Adolph demurely enough now, because he saw that Kep was very much in earnest.
"See," said the boy, "I have worn myself almost thin, brain-working and studying, for a time to come, when I shall be great, though never perhaps wealthy."
"What, not even if we recover those sunken millions?"
"I don't even allow these to count for anything, Adolph. Money can do much, but it never can satisfy the longings of an ambitious boy. I have," he added, "a double incentive now to struggle to rise. I have always loved my father and he loves me, although we are both too Scotch ever to have shown it. But, Adolph, I never felt I loved him half so much as I find I now do.
"He, the quiet, the unobtrusive unselfish man, who never in all his life lived half so much for himself as for those around him, he, a true-born Nature's King, to be hurled from his high estate and forced to live in a cottage. He whom--Oh, but I cannot bear to speak of it, Adolph, and I groan in bed when I think that my conduct may have contributed extra sorrow to his blameless life. But listen, Adolphus----"
Here the boy sprang to his feet on the mountain top, extending his right arm heavenwards in the impressive attitude the Scottish people assume when taking an oath--
"Young in years though I be, I shall now live for the father I have wronged, live for him, work for him, until he is once more restored to his princely Martello Castle. Don't smile at me even in your heart, Adolphus. I am romantic, impulsive, foolish, but, oh comrade, I am sincere." Then Kep became the boy again.
"I'm happier now," he said laughing. "I've found a peg to hang my mental hat upon. I feel I have now something to live for. Come, I shall pipe to show you I am quite recovered."