--not of his father, the last marquis, but the brother who had
preceded him, that she felt all but certain, whoever might be his
mother, he had as much of the Colonsay blood in his veins as any
marquis of them all. It was in consideration of this likeness that
Mr Crathie had permitted the youth, when his services were not
required, to read in the library.

Malcolm went straight to a certain corner, and from amongst a dingy
set of old classics took down a small Greek book, in large type.
It was the manual of that slave among slaves, that noble among the
free, Epictetus. He was no great Greek scholar, but, with the help
of the Latin translation, and the gloss of his own rath experience,
he could lay hold of the mind of that slave of a slave, whose very
slavery was his slave to carry him to the heights of freedom. It was
not Greek he cared for, but Epictetus. It was but little he read,
however, for the occurrence of the morning demanded, compelled
thought. Mr Crathie's behaviour caused him neither anger nor
uneasiness, but it rendered necessary some decision with regard to
the ordering of his future.

I can hardly say he recalled how, on his deathbed, the late marquis,
about three months before, having, with all needful observances,
acknowledged him his son, had committed to his trust the welfare
of his sister; for the memory of this charge was never absent from
his feeling even when not immediately present to his thought. But
although a charge which he would have taken upon him all the same
had his father not committed it to him, it was none the less a
source of perplexity upon which as yet all his thinking had let in
but little light. For to appear as Marquis of Lossie was not merely
to take from his sister the title she supposed her own, but to