thriftless, thoughtless ways, and her laughing baby face, and her yellow
head--a silly little head enough, perhaps, but a dear, dear little head
to me.

She had the same admiration, almost awe, of the splendours of this world
in any form; the same love of fine clothes--with the same carelessness
as to how she used them. It gave me a good laugh, the first afternoon I
was there, to see her come in with a new dress all soiled and torn by a
holly-bush she had pushed her way through on the lawn. It made me think
of the time when she had gone popping in and out to the little back
garden at Glasgow, and singing and swinging about the stairs--a bonnie
wee lassie with a dirty pink cotton gown, and, as often as not, dirtier
face.

Paul seemed to me, in looks at least, to have more than fulfilled the
promise of his boyhood. A handsomer, more self-reliant-looking young
fellow I had never seen; and I was not long in the house before I
observed--with secret tears of amusement--that it was not only in looks
he remained unchanged. The same dictatorialness and sharp tongue; the
same thinly-veiled insolence to Duncan; the same swift smiles from his
entrancing lips--thank Heaven undisfigured by any moustache--to myself;
the same unalterable gentleness to Janet. His invariable courtesy to
Duncan's wife made me very happy. It was as I said: there was much good
in the boy.

Paul had a little money of his own to begin with, and I did think
Duncan, with his fortune, might have sent an exceptionally clever lad
like that to one of the Universities, and made something of him
afterwards--a lawyer, say; but instead of that, Paul was put into
business in London, and, I was glad to hear, was doing very well.