Frazer speak up pretty strongly in favour of
a long line of unspotted ancestry."

"I had forgotten our own, I suppose, when
I spoke so. Simon Lord Lovat is a creditable
great uncle to the Frazers. If all tales be
true, he ought to have been hanged for a
felon, instead of beheaded like a loyal
gentleman."

"O!  if you're determined to foul your own
nest, I have done. Let James Brown come in;
I will make him my bow, and thank him for
condescending to marry a Frazer."

"Uncle," said Margaret, now fairly crying,
"don't let us part in anger.  We love each
other in our hearts. You have been good to
me, and so has my aunt. But I have given
my word to Doctor Brown, and I must keep it.
I should love him if he was the son of a
ploughman.  We don't expect to be rich;
but he has a few hundreds to start with, and
I have my own hundred a-year —"

"Well, well, child, don't cry. You have
settled it all for yourself, it seems; so I wash
my hands of it. I shake off all responsibility.
You will tell your aunt what arrangements
you make with Doctor Brown about
your marriage, and I will do what you wish
in the matter. But don't send the young
man in to me to ask my consent. I neither
give it nor withhold it.  It would have been
different if it had been Sir Alexander."

"O! Uncle Frazer, don't speak so. See Dr.
Brown, and at any rate—for my sake— tell
him you consent. Let me belong to you that
much. It seems so desolate at such a time to
have to dispose of myself as if nobody owned
or cared for me."

The door was thrown open, and Doctor
James Brown was announced. Margaret
hastened away; and, before he was aware, the
Professor had given a sort of consent, without
asking a question of the happy young man,
who hurried away to seek his betrothed;
leaving her uncle muttering to himself.

Both Doctor and Mrs. Frazer were so
strongly opposed to Margaret's engagement,
in reality, that they could not help
showing it by manner and implication;
although they had the grace to keep silent.
But Margaret felt even more keenly than her
lover, that he was not welcome in the house.
Her pleasure in seeing him was destroyed
by her sense of the cold welcome that he
received; and she willingly yielded to his
desire of a short engagement; which was
contrary to their original plan of waiting until
he should be settled in practice in London,
and should see his way clear to such an
income as should render their marriage a
prudent step. Doctor and Mrs. Frazer neither
objected nor approved. Margaret would
rather have had the most vehement opposition
than this icy coldness. But it made .her
turn with redoubled affection to her
warm-hearted and sympathising lover. Not that
she had ever discussed her uncle and aunt's
behaviour with him. As long as he was
apparently unaware of it, she would not
awaken him to a sense of it. Besides, they
had stood to her so long in the relation of
parents, that she felt she had no right to bring
in a stranger to sit in judgment upon them.

So it was with rather a heavy heart that
she arranged their future ménage with
Doctor Brown; unable to profit by her
aunt's experience and wisdom. But Margaret
herself was a prudent and sensible
girl. Although accustomed to a degree
of comfort in her uncle's house that almost
amounted to luxury, she could resolutely
dispense with it when occasion required. When
Doctor Brown started for London to seek and
prepare their new home, she enjoined him not
to make any but the most necessary
preparations for her reception. She would
herself superintend all that was wanting when
she came. He had some old furniture stored
up in a warehouse which had been his
mother's. He proposed selling it, and buying
new in its place. Margaret persuaded him
not to do this; but to make it go as far as it
could. The household of the newly-married
couple was to consist of a Scotch woman long
connected with the Frazer family, who was to
be the sole female servant; and of a man whom
Doctor Brown picked up in London, soon after
he had fixed on a house, a man named
Crawford, who had lived for many years with a
gentleman now gone abroad, but who gave him
the most excellent character, in reply to Doctor
Brown's inquiries. This gentleman had
employed Crawford in a number of ways; so
that in fact he was a kind of Jack-of-all-trades;
and Doctor Brown, in every letter to
Margaret, had some new accomplishment of
his servant's to relate, which he did with the
more fulness and zest, because Margaret had
slightly questioned the wisdom of starting in
life with a man-servant, but had yielded to
Doctor Brown's arguments of the necessity
of keeping up a respectable appearance,
making a decent show, &c, to any one who
might be inclined to consult him, but be
daunted by the appearance of old Christie
out of the kitchen, and unwilling to leave any
message to one who spoke such unintelligible
English. Crawford was so good a carpenter
that he could put up shelves, adjust faulty
hinges, mend locks, and even went the length
of constructing a box out of some old boards
that had once formed a packing-case. Crawford
one day, when his master was too busy
to go out for his dinner, improvised an omelette
as good as any Doctor Brown had ever
tasted in Paris, when he was studying there.
In short, Crawford was a kind of admirable
Crichton in his way, and Margaret was
quite convinced that Doctor Brown was right
in his decision that they must have a
man-servant; even before she was respectfully
greeted by Crawford as he opened the door
to the newly-married couple, when they came
to their new home after their short wedding
tour.