Heather and Snow by George MacDonald — Read

There was no difference of feeling betwixt the father and mother in / regard to this devotion of Kirsty's very being to her Steenie; but the / mother in especial was content with it, for while Kirsty was the apple / of her eye, Steenie was her one loved anxiety.

David Barclay, a humble unit in the widespread and distinguished family / of the Barclays or Berkeleys, was born, like his father and grandfather / and many more of his ancestors, on the same farm he now occupied. While / his father was yet alive, with an elder son to succeed him, David / _listed_ -- mainly from a strong desire to be near a school-friend, then / an ensign in the service of the East India Company. Throughout their / following military career they were in the same regiment, the one / rising to be colonel, the other sergeant-major. All the time, the / schoolboy-attachment went on deepening in the men; and, all the time, / was never man more respectfully obedient to orders than David Barclay / to those of the superior officer with whom in private he was on terms / of intimacy. As often as they could without attracting notice, the / comrades threw aside all distinction of rank, and were again the Archie / Gordon and Davie Barclay of old school-days -- as real to them still as / those of the hardest battles they had fought together. In more / primitive Scotland, such relations are, or were more possible than in / countries where more divergent habits of life occasion wider social / separations; and then these were sober-minded men, who neither made / much of the shows of the world, nor were greedy after distinction, / which is the mere coffin wherein Duty-done lies buried.