“There was a reason for it,” said Sir Arthur with dignity; “you know the opinions—prejudices, perhaps you will call them—of our house concerning purity of birth. This young gentleman is, it seems, the illegitimate son of a man of fortune; my daughter did not choose to renew their acquaintance till she should know whether I approved of her holding any intercourse with him.”
“If it had been with his mother instead of himself,” answered Oldbuck, with his usual dry causticity of humour, “I could see an excellent reason for it. Ah, poor lad! that was the cause, then, that he seemed so absent and confused while I explained to him the reason of the bend of bastardy upon the shield yonder under the corner turret!”
“True,” said the Baronet, with complacency—“it is the shield of Malcolm the Usurpe
