Yes! Let Mamma keep her Matt, ay, and Mary too Nessie was his. He would make something of her, his ewe lamb. Although she was so young she had the look of a real smart wee thing about her and the Rector had said to him only the other night that she had the makings of a scholar if she stuck in hard to her work. That was the way to do it. Pick them out young and keep them at it. He was looking ahead too, with something up his sleeve for the future. The Latta Bursary! The crowning success of a brilliant scholastic career. She had it in her to take it, if she was nursed the right way. Gad! What a triumph! A girl to win the Latta the first girl to win it, ay, and a Brodie at that! He would see that she did it. Mamma had better keep her soft spoiling hands off his daughter. He would see to that.

He did not quite know what he would make of her, but education was education; there were degrees that could be taken later on at college, and triumphs to be won. They all knew in the Borough that he was a man of progress, of broad and liberal ideas, and he would bring this more emphatically before them, yes, ram it into their silly mouths. "Did ye hear the latest!" he could hear them chatter. "That clever lass o' Brodie's is awa' up to the College ay, she's taken the Latta fair scooped the pool at the Academy, and he's lettin' her travel up and down to the University. He's a liberal-minded man for sure, It's a feather in his bonnet right enough."

Yes! He would show them in the town. His chest expanded, his nostrils quivered, his eye became fixed and distant, as he gave rein to his fancy, while his unnoticed pipe went out and grew cold. He would make them recognise him, make them look up to him, would force them somehow, some day, to see him as he really was.

The thought of Nessie faded gradually from his mind and he ceased to contemplate her future but, making himself the central figure of all his mental pictures, steeped himself delightfully in the glory she would bring to his name.