should take care of prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think, when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."
"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."
She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness, superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his few foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring; it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let it pass with dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in no stead. Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:
"I won't leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you! I'll never pain you!" was her cry.
"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without. Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves slowly—lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by sign nor word; yet his eye said:—"Lucy, come here." And I went.
Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper, save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation which now fevered him.
"M. de Bassompierre is there—is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the library.
"Yes."
"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
"Yes, Graham."
"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is she?"
"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times) "is talking to his daughter."
"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going to write mortal, but such words ill apply to one all living like him)—a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this trouble his smile never faded.
