His daughter met him with a grave face. The determined Hutchison blood ran still and sure in her veins.
"Father," she said, "what I am going to tell you will give you pain: I have promised to marry Duncan Rowallan."
The stern old minister swayed—doubting whether he had heard aright.
"Marry Duncan Rowallan, the dominie!" he said; "the lassie's gane gyte!
He's dismissed and a pauper!"
"No," she said; "on the contrary, he has got a mastership at the High
School. I have promised to marry him."
The old man said no word. He did not try to hector Grace, as he would have done any one outside the manse. Her household autocracy asserted itself even in that supreme moment. Besides, he knew that it would be so useless, for she was his own child. He put one hand up uncertainly and smoothed his brow vaguely, as though something hurt him and he did not understand.
He sat down in his great chair, and took up a little fire-screen that had stood many years by his chair. Grace had worked it as a sampler when as a little girl she went to the village school and had slept at night in his room in a little trundle-bed. He looked at it strangely.
"Grade," he said, "Gracie—my wee Gracie!"—and then he set the fire-screen down very gently. "I am an old man and full of years," he said. He looked worn and broken.
Grace went quickly and put her arms about his neck.
"No, no, father," she said; "you have only gained a son."