CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAIRD.
Thomas Galbraith was by birth Thomas Durrant, but had married an heiress by whom he came into possession of Glashruach, and had, according to previous agreement, taken her name.

When she died he mourned her loss as well as he could, but was consoled by feeling himself now first master of both position and possession, when the ladder by which he had attained them was removed.

It was not that she had ever given him occasion to feel that marriage and not inheritance was the source of his distinction in the land, but that having a soul as keenly sensitive to small material rights as it was obtuse to great spiritual ones, he never felt the property quite his own until his wife was no longer within sight.

Had he been a little more sensitive still, he would have felt that the property was then his daughter's, and his only through her; but this he failed to consider.
Mrs.Galbraith was a gentle sweet woman, who loved her husband, but was capable of loving a greater man better.

Had she lived long enough to allow of their opinions confronting in the matter of their child's education, serious differences would probably have arisen between them; as it was, they had never quarrelled except about the name she should bear.