and in his own, the laird closed the door of the room, and
advancing the whole length of it, stopped at a sofa covered with a
rich brocade, and seating himself thereon, slowly, and with a kind
of care, drew him between his thin knees, and began to talk to him.
Now there was this difference between the relation of these two and
that of most fathers and sons, that, thus taken into solemn
solitude by his old father, the boy felt no dismay, no sense of
fault to be found, no troubled expectation of admonition. Reverence
and love held about equal sway in his feeling towards his father.
And while the grandmother looked down on Cosmo as the son of his
mother, for that very reason his father in a strange lovely way
reverenced his boy: the reaction was utter devotion.

Cosmo stood and looked in his father's eyes--their eyes were of the
same colour.--that bright sweet soft Norwegian blue--his right hand
still clasped in his father's left, and his left hand leaning
gently on his father's knee. Then, as I say, the old man began to
talk to the young one. A silent man ordinarily, it was from no lack
of the power of speech, for he had a Celtic gift of simple
eloquence.

"This is your birthday, my son."

"Yes, papa."

"You are now fourteen."

"Yes, papa."

"You are growing quite a man."