The maid rose, and passing out observed the discarded basin of broth.
'What's this?' she said. 'Ye'll no be able to see Mr. Kinnaird to-morrow if ye don't take yer soup the night.'
'Gie it to me, Jeanie Trim; I thought he wasna coming again when I said I wouldna.'
The nurse slipped out of the shadow of the wardrobe and went out to tell that the soup was being eaten.
'Kinnaird,' repeated the minister meditatively. 'I never heard my aunt speak the name.'
'Kinnaird,' repeated the daughters; and they too searched in their memories.
'I can remember my grandfather and my grandmother—the married daughter spoke incredulously—'there was never a gentleman called Kinnaird that any of the family had to do with. I'm sure of that, or I'd have as much as heard the name.'
The minister shook his head, discounting the certainty.
'Maybe John will remember the name; your father, and your grandfather too, had great talks with him when he was a lad. I'll write a line and ask him. Poor William or Thomas might have known, if they had lived.'
William and Thomas, grey-haired men, respected fathers of families, had already been laid by the side of their father in the burying-ground. John lived in a distant country, counting himself too feeble now to cross the seas. The daughters, the younger members of this flock, were passing into advanced years. The mother sat by her fireside, and smiled softly to herself as she watched the dancing flame, and thought that her young lover would return on the morrow.