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diff --git a/old/43731.txt b/old/43731.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 123cdcd..0000000 --- a/old/43731.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9822 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bud, by Neil Munro - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Bud - A Novel - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43731] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUD *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -BUD - -A Novel - -BY NEIL MUNRO - -1906 - -BUD - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with queer -little jolts and pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been -jovial the night before. A blithe New-Year's-time bell; a droll, daft, -scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarms, no solemn reminders that -commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows melancholy to think -upon things undone, the brevity of days and years, the parting of good -company, but a cheery ditty--"boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding, -hie, ding-dong," infecting whoever heard it with a kind of foolish -gayety. The burgh town turned on its pillows, drew up its feet from the -bed-bottles, last night hot, now turned to chilly stone, rubbed its -eyes, and knew by that bell it was the daftest of the daft days come. It -cast a merry spell on the community; it tickled them even in their cosey -beds. "Wanton Wully's on the randan!" said the folk, and rose quickly, -and ran to pull aside screens and blinds to look out in the dark on -window-ledges cushioned deep in snow. The children hugged themselves -under the blankets, and told one another in whispers it was not a -porridge morning, no, nor Sunday, but a breakfast of shortbread, ham, -and eggs; and behold! a beautiful, loud drum, careless as 'twere a -reveille of hot, wild youths, began to beat in a distant lane. Behind -the house of Dyce, the lawyer, a cock that must have been young and -hearty crew like to burst; and at the stables of the post-office the man -who housed his horses after bringing the morning mail through night and -storm from a distant railway station sang a song: - - "'A damsel possessed of great beauty - Stood near by her own father's gate: - The gallant hussars were on duty; - To view them this maiden did wait. - Their horses were capering and prancing, - Their accoutrements shone like a star; - From the plains they were quickly advancing-- - She espied her own gallant hussard" - -"Mercy on us, six o'clock!" cried Miss Dyce, with a startled jump from -her dreams to the floor of her bedroom. "Six o'clock on the New Year's -morning, and I'll warrant that randy Kate is sound asleep yet," she -said, and quickly clad herself and went to the head of the stair -and cried, "Kate! Kate! are ye up yet, Kate? Are ye hearing me, Kate -MacNeill?" - -From the cavern dark of the lower story there came back no answer. - -She stood with a curious, twirly wooden candlestick in her hand in -the midst of a house that was dead dumb and desperate dark and smelled -deliciously of things to eat. Even herself, who had been at the making -of most of them the day before, and had, by God's grace, still much of -a child's appetite, could not but sniff with a childish satisfaction at -this air of a celestial grocery--of plum-puddings and currant-buns, -apples and oranges, cordials and spices, toffee and the angelic treacly -sweet we call Black Man--her face lit rosily by the candle low, a woman -small and soft and sappy, with the most wanton reddish hair, and a -briskness of body that showed no sign as yet of her accomplished years. -What they were I will never tell you; but this I'll say, that even if -they had been eighty she was the kind to cheerily dance a quadrille. -The daft bell, so plainly in the jovial mood of Wanton Wully Oliver, -infected her: she smiled to herself in a way she had when remembering -droll things or just for simple jollity, and whoever saw Bell Dyce smile -to herself had never the least doubt after that she was a darling. Over -the tenements of the town the song of the bell went rollicking, and in -its hiccoughing pauses went wonderfully another sound far, far removed -in spirit and suggestion--the clang of wild geese calling: the "honk, -honk" of the ganders and the challenge of their ladies come down adrift -in the snow from the bitter north. - -But there was no answer from the maid in the kitchen. She had rolled -less deliberately than was usual from her blankets to the summons of -the six-o'clock bell, and already, with the kitchen window open, -her bounteous form surged over the two sashes that were always so -conveniently low and handy for a gossip with any friendly passer-by -on the pavement. She drank the air of the clean, chill morning dark, a -heady thing like old Tom Watson's autumn ale, full of the sentiment of -the daft days. She tilted an ear to catch the tune of the mail-boy's -song that now was echoing mellow from the cobwebbed gloom of the stable -stalls, and, making a snowball from the drift of the window-ledge, -she threw it, woman wise, aimlessly into the street with a pretence at -combat. The chill of the snow stung sweet in the hot palm of her, for -she was young and strong. - -"Kate, you wretch!" cried a voice behind her. She drew in her head, to -find her mistress in the kitchen with the candlestick in her hand. - -"Oh, m'em," cried the maid, no way abashed, banging up the window and -hurriedly crushing her more ample parts under the final hooks and eyes -of her morning wrapper--"oh, m'em, what a start you gave me! I'm all in -a p-p-palpitation. I was just takin' one mouthful of air and thinkin' to -myself yonder in the Gaelic that it was time for me to be comin' in and -risin' right." - -"A happy New Year to you, Kate MacNeill," said the mistress, taking her -hand. - -"Just that, just that! and the same to you yourself, Miss Dyce. I'm -feeling fine; I'm that glad with everything," said the maid, in some -confusion at this unusual relation with her mistress. She shook the -proffered hand rapidly from side to side as if it were an egg-switch. - -"And see and get the fires on quick now, like a good lass. It would -never do to be starting the New Year late--it would be unlucky. I was -crying to you yonder from the stair-head, and wondering if you were ill, -that you did not answer me so quickly as you do for ordinar'." - -"Ill, Miss Dyce!" cried the maid, astounded. "Do you think I'm daft to -be ill on a New Year's Day?" - -"After yon--after yon shortbread you ate yesterday I would not have -wondered much if you were," said Miss Dyce, shaking her head solemnly. -"I'm not complaining, but, dear me! it was an awful lump; and -I thought it would be a bonny-like thing, too, if our first-foot had to -be the doctor." - -"Doctor! I declare to goodness I never had need of a doctor to me since -Dr. Macphee in Colonsay put me in order with oil and things after I had -the measles," exclaimed the maid, as if mankind were like wag-at-the-wa' -clocks, and could be guaranteed to go right for years if you blew -through them with a pair of bellows or touched their works with an oily -feather. - -"Never mind about the measles just now, Kate," said Miss Dyce, with a -meaning look at the black-out fire. - -"Neither I was mindin' them, m'em--I don't care a spittle for them; it's -so long ago I would not know them if I saw them; I was just--" - -"But get your fire on. You know we have a lot to do to-day to get -everything nice and ready for my nephew who comes from America with the -four-o'clock coach." - -"America!" cried the maid, dropping a saucepan lid on the floor in her -astonishment. "My stars! Did I not think it was from Chickagoo?" - -"And Chicago is in America, Kate," said her mistress. "Is it? is it? -Mercy on me, how was Kate to know? I only got part of my education--up -to the place where you carry one and add ten. America! Dear me, just -fancy! The very place that I'm so keen to go to. If I had the money, and -was in America--" - -It was a familiar theme; Kate had not got fully started on it when -her mistress fled from the kitchen and set briskly about her morning -affairs. - -And gradually the household of Dyce, the lawyer, awoke wholly to a day -of unaccustomed stillness and sound, for the deep snow piled in the -street and hushed the traffic of wheel and hoof and shoe, but otherwise -the morning was cheerful with New-Year's-Day noise. For the bell-ringing -of Wanton Wully was scarcely done, died down in a kind of brazen -chuckle, and the "honk, honk" of the wild geese sped seaward over -gardens and back lanes--strange, wild music of the north, far-fetched -and undomestic--when the fife band shrilly tootled through the town to -the tune of "Hey, Johnny Cope, are Ye Waukin' Yet?" Ah, they were the -proud, proud men, their heads dizzy with glory and last night's wine, -their tread on air. John Taggart drummed--a mighty drummer, drunk or -sober, who so loved his instrument he sometimes went to bed with it -still fastened to his neck, and banged to-day like Banagher, who banged -furiously, never minding the tune much, but happy if so be that he made -noise enough. And the fifers were not long gone down the town, all with -the wrong step but Johnny Vicar, as his mother thought, when the snow -was trampled under the feet of playing children, and women ran out of -their houses, and crossed the street, some of them, I declare, to kiss -each other, for 'tis a fashion lately come, and most genteel, grown -wonderfully common in Scotland. Right down the middle of the town, with -two small flags in his hat and holly in the lapel of his coat, went -old Divine, the hawker, with a great barrow of pure gold, crying: -"Fine Venetian oranges! wha'll buy sweet Venetian oranges? Nane o' your -foreign trash. Oranges! Oranges!--rale New Year oranges, three a penny; -bloods, a bawbee each!" The shops opened just for an hour for fear -anybody might want anything, and many there were, you may be sure, -who did, for they had eaten and drunken everything provided the night -before--which we call hogmanay--and now there were currant-loaves and -sweety biscuits to buy; shortcake, sugar, and lemons, ginger cordial -for the boys and girls and United Presbyterians, boiled ham for country -cousins who might come unexpected, and P. & A. MacGlashan's threepenny -mutton-pies (twopence if you brought the ashet back), ordinarily only to -be had on fair-days and on Saturdays, and far renowned for value. - -Miss Minto's Millinery and Manteau Emporium was discovered at daylight -to have magically outlined its doors and windows during the night -with garlands and festoons of spruce and holly, whereon the white rose -bloomed in snow; and Miss Minto herself, in a splendid crimson cloak -down to the heels and cheeks like cherries, was standing with mittens -and her five finger-rings on, in the middle door, saying in beautiful, -gentle English, "A happy New Year" to every one who passed--even to -George Jordon, the common cowherd, who was always a little funny in -his intellects, and, because his trousers were bell-mouthed and hid his -feet, could never remember whether he was going to his work or coming -from it, unless he consulted; the school-master. "The same to you, -m'em, excuse my hands," said poor George, just touching the tips of her -fingers. Then, because he had been stopped and slewed a little from his -course, he just went back the way he had come. - -Too late got up the red-faced sun, too late to laugh at Wanton Wully's -jovial bell, too late for Taggart's mighty drumming, but a jolly winter -sun--'twas all that was wanted among the chimneys to make the day -complete. - -First of all to rise in Dyce's house, after the mistress and the maid, -was the master, Daniel Dyce himself. - -And now I will tell you all about Daniel Dyce: it is that behind his -back he was known as Cheery Dan. - -"Your bath is ready, Dan," his sister had cried, and he rose and went -with chittering teeth to it, looked at it a moment, and put a hand in -the water. It was as cold as ice, because that water, drinking which men -never age, comes from high mountain bens. - -"That for ye to-day!" said he to the bath, snapping his fingers. "I'll -see ye far enough first!" And contented himself with a slighter wash -than usual, and shaving. As he shaved he hummed all the time, as was his -habit, an ancient air of his boyhood; to-day it was - - "' Star of Peace, to wanderers weary,'" - -with not much tone but a great conviction--a tall, lean, clean-shaven -man of over fifty, with a fine, long nose, a ruddy cheek, keen, gray -eyes, and plenty of room in his clothes, the pockets of him so large -and open it was no wonder so many people tried, as it were, to put their -hands into them. And when he was dressed he did a droll thing, for from -one of his pockets he took what hereabouts we call a pea-sling, that to -the rest of the world is a catapult, and having shut one eye, and aimed -with the weapon, and snapped the rubber several times with amazing -gravity, he went up-stairs into an attic and laid it on a table at the -window with a pencilled note, in which he wrote: - -"A New Year's Day Present for a Good Boy, from an Uncle who does not -like Cats." - -He looked round the little room that seemed very bright and cheerful, -for its window gazed over the garden to the east and to the valley where -was seen the King's highway. "Wonderful! wonderful!" he said to himself. -"They have made an extraordinary job of it. Very nice, indeed, but just -a shade ladylike. A stirring boy would prefer fewer fallals." There -was little, indeed, to suggest the occupation of a stirring boy in that -attic, with its draped dressing-table in lilac print, its looking-glass -flounced in muslin and pink lover's-knots, its bower-like bed canopied -and curtained with green lawn, its shy scent of potpourri and lavender. -A framed text in crimson wools, the work of Bell Dyce when she was -in Miss Mushet's seminary, hung over the mantel-piece enjoining all -beholders to - - "Watch and Pray" - -Mr. Dyce put both hands into his trousers-pockets, bent a little, and -heaved in a sort of chirruping laughter. "Man's whole duty, according to -Bell Dyce," he said, "'Watch and Pray'; but they do not need to have the -lesson before them continually yonder in Chicago, I'll warrant. Yon's -the place for watching, by all accounts, however it may be about the -prayer. 'Watch and Pray'--h'm! It should be Watch or Pray--it clearly -cannot be both at once with the world the way it is; you might as well -expect a man to eat pease-meal and whistle strathspeys at the same -time." - -He was humming "Star of Peace"--for the tune he started the morning -with usually lasted him all day--and standing in the middle of the -floor contemplating with amusement the lady-like adornment of the room -prepared for his Chicago nephew, when a light step fell on the attic -stairs, and a woman's voice cried: "Dan! Dan Dyce! Coo-ee!" - -He did not answer. - -She cried again after coming up a step or two more, but still he did not -answer. He slid behind one of the bed-curtains. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ALISON DYCE came lightly up the rest of the stair, whistling blithely, -in spite of her sister Bell's old notion that whistling women and -crowing hens are never canny. She swept into the room. People in the -town--which has a forest of wood and deer behind it--used to say she had -the tread and carriage of a young wild roe, and I can well assure you -she was the girl to walk with on a winter day! She had in her hand -a book of poems called _The Golden Treasury_ and a spray of the herb -called Honesty, that thrives in poor men's gardens. Having laid them -down on the table without noticing her brother's extraordinary Present -for a Good Boy, she turned about and fondled things. She smoothed the -bedclothes as if they covered a child, she patted the chair-backs with -an air of benediction, she took cushions to her breast like one that -cuddled them, and when she touched the mantelpiece ornaments they could -not help it but must start to chime. It was always a joy to see -Alison Dyce redding-up, as we say, though in housewifery, like sewing, -knitting, and cooking, she was only a poor second to her sister Bell. -She tried, from duty, to like these occupations, but oh, dear! the task -was beyond her: whatever she had learned from her schooling in Edinburgh -and Brussels, it was not the darning of hose and the covering of -rhubarb-tarts. - -Her gift, said Bell, was management. - -Tripping round the little attic, she came back by-and-by to the table -at the window to take one last wee glimpse inside _The Golden Treasury_, -that was her own delight and her notion of happy half-hours for the -ideal boy, and her eye fell for the first time on the pea-sling and the -note beside it. - -She read, and laughed, and upon my word, if laughter like Ailie Dyce's -could be bought in perforated rolls, there would be no demand for Chopin -and Schumann on the pianolas. It was a laugh that even her brother could -not resist: a paroxysm of coughing burst from behind the curtains, and -he came out beside her chuckling. - -"I reckoned without my hoast," said he, gasping. - -"I was sure you were up-stairs," said Alison. "You silly man! Upon my -word! Where's your dignity, Mr. Dyce?" - -Dan Dyce stood for a second a little bit abashed, rubbing his chin and -blinking his eyes as if their fun was a thing to be kept from brimming -over. "I'm a great wag!" said he. "If it's dignity you're after, just -look at my velvet coat!" and so saying he caught the ends of his coat -skirts with his fingers, held them out at arm's-length, and turned round -as he might do at a fit-on in his tailor's, laughing till his hoast came -on again. "Dignity, quo' she, just look at my velvet coat!" - -"Dan! Dan! will you never be wise?" said Ailie Dyce, a humorsome -demoiselle herself, if you believe me. - -"Not if I keep my health," said he. "You have made a bonny-like show of -the old garret, between the two of you. It's as smart as a lass at her -first ball." - -"I think it's very nice; at least it might be worse," interrupted -Alison, defensively, glancing round with satisfaction and an eye to the -hang of the frame round "Watch and Pray." Bell's wool-work never agreed -with her notions, but, as she knew that her tarts never agreed with -Bell, she kept, on that point, aye discreetly dumb. - -"Poor little Chicago!" said her brother. "I'm vexed for the wee fellow. -Print chintz, or chint prints, or whatever it is; sampler texts, and -scent, and poetry books--what in the world is the boy to break?" - -"Oh, you have seen to that department, Dan!" said Ailie, taking the -pea-sling again in her hand. "'A New Year's Day Present for a Good Boy -from an Uncle who does not like Cats.' I declare that is a delightful -way of making the child feel quite at home at once." - -"Tuts! 'Tis just a diversion. I know it 'll cheer him wonderfully to -find at the start that if there's no young folk in the house there's -some of the eternal Prank. I suppose there are cats in Chicago. He -cannot expect us to provide him with pigs, which are the usual domestic -pets there, I believe. You let my pea-sling alone, Ailie; you'll find it -will please him more than all the poetry and pink bows. I was once a boy -myself, and I know." - -"You were never anything else," said Alison--"and never will be anything -else. It is a pity to let the child see at the very start what an -irresponsible person his uncle is; and, besides, it's cruel to throw -stones at cats." - -"Not at all, not at all!" said her brother, briskly, with his head -quizzically to the side a little, in a way he had when debating in the -court. "I have been throwing stones for twenty years at those cats of -Rodger's that live in our garden, and I never hit one yet. They're all -about six inches too short for genuine sport. If cats were dachshund -dogs, and I wasn't so fond of dogs, I would be deadly. But my ado with -cats is just one of the manly old British sports, like trout-fishing and -curling. You take your fun out in anticipation, and the only difference -is you never need to carry a flask. Still, I'm not without hope that my -nephew from Chicago may have a better aim than I have." - -"You are an old--an old goose, Dan Dyce, and a happy New Year to you!" -said his sister, putting her arms suddenly round his neck and kissing -him. - -"Tuts! the coming of that child's ta'en your head," said the brother, -reddening, for sisters never kiss their own brothers in our part--it's -so sentimental, it's so like the penny stories. "A good New Year to -you, Ailie," and "Tuts!" he said again, looking quite upset, till Ailie -laughed and put her arm through his and drew him down-stairs to the -breakfast to which she had come to summon him. - -The Chicago child's bedroom, left to itself, chilly a bit like Highland -weather, but honest and clean, looked more like a bower than ever: the -morning sun, peeping over garden trees and the chimneys of the lanes, -gazed particularly on the table where the pea-sling and the poetry book -lay together. - -And now the town was thronged like a fair-day, with such stirring things -happening every moment in the street that the servant, Kate, had a -constant head out at the window, "putting by the time," as she explained -to the passing inquirer, "till the mustress would be ready for the -breakfast." That was Kate--she had come from an island where they make -the most of everything that may be news, even if it's only brandy-sauce -to pudding at the minister's; and Miss Dyce could not start cutting a -new bodice or sewing a button on her brother's trousers but the maid -billowed out upon the window-sash to tell the tidings to the first of -her sex that passed. - -Over the trodden snow she saw the people from the country crowd in their -Sunday clothes, looking pretty early in the day for gayety, all with -scent on their handkerchiefs (which is the odor of festive days for -a hundred miles round burgh towns); and town people, less splendid -in attire, as folk that know the difference between a holiday and a -Sabbath, and leave their religious hard hats at home on a New Year's -Day; children, too, replete with bun already, and all succulent with the -juice of Divine's oranges. She heard the bell begin to peal again, for -Wully Oliver--fie on Wully Oliver!--had been met by some boys who told -him the six-o'clock bell was not yet rung, and sent him back to perform -an office he had done with hours before. He went to his bell dubiously, -something in the dizzy abyss he called his mind that half convinced him -he had rung it already. - -"Let me pause and consider," he said once or twice when being urged -to the rope, scratching the hair behind his ears with both hands, -his gesture of reflection. "Was there no' a bairn--an auld-fashioned -bairn--helped to ca' the bell already, and wanted to gie me money for -the chance? It runs in my mind there was a bairn, and that she had us -aye boil-boiling away at eggs, but maybe I'm wrong, for I'll admit I had -a dram or two and lost the place. I don't believe in dram-dram-dramming, -but I aye say if you take a dram, take it in the morning and you get -the good of it all day. It's a tip I learned in the Crimea." But at -last they convinced him the bairn was just imagination, and Wanton Wully -Oliver spat on his hands and grasped the rope, and so it happened that -the morning bell on the New Year's Day on which my story opens was twice -rung. - -The Dyce handmaid heard it pealing as she hung over the window-sash -with her cap awry on her head. She heard from every quarter--from lanes, -closes, tavern-rooms, high attics, and back yards--fifes playing; it was -as if she leaned over a magic grove of great big birds, each singing -its own song--"Come to the Bower," or "Moneymusk," or "The Girl I Left -Behind Me," noble airs wherein the captain of the band looked for a -certain perfection from his musicians before they marched out again at -mid-day. "For," said he often in rehearsals, "anything will do in the -way of a tune in the dark, my sunny boys, but it must be the tiptop of -skill, and no discordancy, when the eyes of the world are on us. One -turn more at 'Moneymusk,' sunny boys, and then we'll have a skelp at yon -tune of my own composure." - -Besides the sound of the bell and the universal practice of the fifes -there were loud vocalists at the Cross, and such laughter in the street -that Kate was in an ecstasy. Once, uplifted beyond all private decorum, -she kilted her gown and gave a step of a reel in her kitchen solitude. - -"Isn't it cheery, the noise!" she exclaimed, delightedly, to the -letter-carrier who came to the window with the morning's letters. "Oh, I -am feeling beautiful! It is--it is--it is just like being inside a pair -of bagpipes." - -He was a man who roared, the postman, being used to bawling up long -common-stairs in the tenements for the people to come down to the foot -themselves for their letters--a man with one roguish eye for the maiden -and another at random. Passing in the letters one by one, he said in -tones that on a quieter day might be heard half up the street, -"Nothing for you, yourself, personally, Kate, but maybe there'll be -one to-morrow. Three big blue anes and seven wee anes for the man -o' business himsel', twa for Miss Ailie (she's the wonderfu' -correspondent!), and ane for Miss Dyce, wi' the smell o' scented -perfume on't--that 'll be frae the Miss Birds o' Edinburgh. And I near -forgot--here's a post-card for Miss Dyce: hearken to this: - -"'Child arrived Liverpool yesterday; left this morning for Scotland. -Quite safe to go alone, charge of conductor. Pip, pip! Molyneux.' - -"Whatna child is it, Kate?" - -"'Pip, pip!' What in the world's 'Pip, pip?' The child is Brother -William's child, to be sure," said Kate, who always referred to the Dyce -relations as if they were her own. "You have heard of Brother William?" - -"Him that was married to the play-actress and never wrote home?" shouted -the letter-carrier. "He went away before my time. Go on; quick, for I'm -in a desperate hurry this mornin'." - -"Well, he died abroad in Chickagoo--God have mercy on him dying so far -away from home, and him without a word of Gaelic in his head!--and a -friend o' his father's bringing the boy home to his aunties." - -"Where in the world's Chickagoo?" bellowed the postman. - -"In America, of course--where else would it be but in America?" -said Kate, contemptuously. "Where is your education not to know that -Chickagoo is in America, where the servant-maids have a pound a week -of wages, and learn the piano, and can get married when they like quite -easy?" - -"Bless me! do you say so?" cried the postman, in amazement, and not -without a pang of jealousy. - -"Yes, I say so!" said Kate, in the snappish style she often showed to -the letter-carrier. "And the child is coming this very day with the -coach-and-twice from Maryfield railway station--oh, them trains! them -trains! with their accidents; my heart is in my mouth to think of -a child in them. Will you not come round to the back and get the -mistress's New Year dram? She is going to give a New Year dram to every -man that calls on business this day. But I will not let you in, for -it is in my mind that you would not be a lucky first-foot." - -"Much obleeged," said the postman, "but ye needna be feared. I'm not -allowed to go dramming at my duty. It's offeecial, and I canna help it. -If it was not offeecial, there's few letter-carriers that wouldna need -to hae iron hoops on their heids to keep their brains from burstin' on -the day efter New Year." - -Kate heard a voice behind her, and pulled her head in hurriedly with a -gasp, and a cry of "Mercy, the start I got!" while the postman fled on -his rounds. Miss Dyce stood behind, in the kitchen, indignant. - -"You are a perfect heartbreak, Kate," said the mistress. "I have rung -for breakfast twice and you never heard me, with your clattering out -there to the letter-carrier. It's a pity you cannot marry the glee -party, as Mr. Dyce calls him, and be done with it." - -"Me marry him!" cried the maid, indignantly. "I think I see myself -marryin' a man like yon, and his eyes not neighbors." - -"That's a trifle in a husband if his heart is good; the letter-carrier's -eyes may--may skew a little, but it's not to be wondered at, considering -the lookout he has to keep on all sides of him to keep out of reach of -every trollop in the town who wants to marry him." - -And leaving Kate speechless at this accusation, the mistress of the -house took the letters from her hands and went to the breakfast-table -with them. - -She had read the contents of the post-card before she reached the -parlor; its news dismayed her. - -"Just imagine!" she cried. "Here's that bairn on his way from Liverpool -his lee-lone, and not a body with him!'' - -"What! what!" cried Mr. Dyce, whose eyes had been shut to say the grace. -"Isn't that actor-fellow, Molyneux, coming with him, as he promised?" - -Miss Dyce sunk in a chair and burst into tears, crushing the post-card -in her hand. - -"What does he say?" demanded her brother. - -"He says--he says--oh, dear me!--he says, 'Pip, pip!'" quoth the -weeping sister. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -"I MISDOUBTED Mr. Molyneux from the very first," said Ailie, turning as -white as a clout. "From all his post-cards he was plainly too casual. -Stop it, Bell, my dear--have sense; the child's in a Christian land, -and in the care of somebody who is probably more dependable than this -delightful Molyneux." - -Mr. Dyce took out an old, thick, silver verge. "Nine o'clock," he said, -with a glance at its creamy countenance. "Molyneux's consignment is -making his first acquaintance with Scottish scenery and finding himself, -I hope, amused at the Edinburgh accent. He'll arrive at Maryfield--poor, -wee smout!--at three; if I drive over at twelve, I'll be in time to -meet him. Tuts, Bell, give over; he's a ten-year-old and a Dyce at -that--there's not the slightest fear of him." - -"Ten years old, and in a foreign country--if you can call Scotland a -foreign country," cried Miss Dyce, still sobbing with anger and grief. -"Oh, the cat-witted scamp, that Molyneux--if I had him here!" - -The dining-room door opened and let in a yawning dog of most plebeian -aspect, longest lie-abed of the household, the clamor of the street, -and the sound of sizzling bacon, followed by Kate's majestic form at -a stately glide, because she had on her new stiff lilac print that was -worn for breakfast only on Sundays and holidays. "You would think I was -never coming," she said, genially, and smiled widely as she put the tray -on the sideboard. This that I show you, I fear, is a beggarly household, -absurdly free from ceremony. Mr. Dyce looked at his sister Ailie and -smiled; Ailie looked at her sister Bell and smiled. Bell took a hair-pin -or two out of their places and seemed to stab herself with them -viciously in the nape of the neck, and smiled not at all nor said -anything, for she was furious with Molyneux, whom she could see in her -mind's eye--an ugly, tippling, frowzy-looking person with badly polished -boots, an impression that would have greatly amused Mrs. Molyneux, who, -not without reason, counted her Jim the handsomest man and the best -dressed in the profession in all Chicago. - -"I'm long of coming, like Royal Charlie," Kate proceeded, as she passed -the ashets on to Miss Dyce; "but, oh me! New Year's Day here is no' like -New Year's Day in the bonny isle of Colonsay." - -Mr. Dyce said grace and abstractedly helped himself alternately from -both ends of a new roll of powdered butter. "Dan, dear, don't take the -butter from both ends--it spoils the look," said Bell. "Tuts!" said he. -"What's the odds? There'll be no ends at all when we're done with -it. I'm utterly regardless of the symmetrical and the beautiful this -morning. I'm savage to think of that man Molyneux. If I was not a man of -peace I would be wanting to wring Mr. Moly-neux's neck," and he twisted -his morning roll in halves with ferocious hands. - -"Dan!" said Ailie, shocked. "I never heard you say anything so -blood-thirsty in all my life before. I would never have thought it of -you." - -"Maybe not," he said. "There's many things about me you never suspected. -You women are always under delusions about the men--about the men--well, -dash it! about the men you like. I know myself so well that there is no -sin, short of one or two not so accounted, that I cannot think myself -capable of. I believe I might be forced into robbing a kirk if I had no -money and was as hungry as I was this morning before that post-card -came to ruin a remarkably fine New-Year's-Day appetite, or even into -murdering a man like Molyneux who failed in the simplest duties no man -should neglect." - -"I hope and trust," said Bell, still nervous, "that he is a wiselike boy -with a proper upbringing, who will not be frightened at travelling and -make no mistakes about the train. If he was a Scotch laddie, with the -fear of God in him, I would not be a bit put about for him, for he would -be sure to be asking, asking, and if he felt frightened he would just -start and eat something, like a Christian. But this poor child has no -advantages--just American!" - -Ailie sat back in her chair, with her teacup in her hand, and laughed, -and Kate laughed quietly--though it beat her to see where the fun was; -and the dog laughed likewise--at least it wagged its tail and twisted -its body and made such extraordinary sounds in its throat that you could -say it was laughing. - -"Tuts! you are the droll woman, Bell," said Mr. Dyce, blinking at her. -"You have the daftest ideas of Some things. For a woman who spent -so long a time in Miss Mushet's seminary, and reads so much at the -newspapers, I wonder at you." - -"Of course his father was Scotch, that's one mercy," added Bell, not a -bit annoyed at the reception of her pious opinions. - -"That, is always something to be going on with," said Mr. Dyce, -mockingly. "I hope he'll make the most of that great start in life and -fortune. It's as good as money in his pocket." - -Bell put up a tiny hand and pushed a stray curl (for she had a rebel -chevelure) behind her ear, and smiled in spite of her anxiety about the -coming nephew. "You may laugh if you like, Dan," she said, emphatically, -perking with her head across the table at him, "but I'm _proud_, I'm -proud, I'm PROUD I'm Scotch." ("Not apologizing for it myself," said -her brother, softly.) "And you know what these Americans are! Useless -bodies, who make their men brush their own boots, and have to pay wages -that's a sin to housemaids, and eat pie even-on." - -"Dear me! is that true, or did you see it in a newspaper?" said her -brother. "I begin to be alarmed myself at the possibilities of this -small gentleman now on his way to the north, in the complete confidence -of Mr. Molyneux, who must think him very clever. It's a land of infant -prodigies he comes from; even at the age of ten he may have more of the -stars and stripes in him than we can eradicate by a diet of porridge and -a curriculum of Shorter Catechism and Jane Porter's _Scottish Chiefs_. -Faith, I was fond of Jane myself when I read her first: she was nice and -bloody. A big soft hat with a bash in it, perhaps; a rhetorical delivery -at the nose, 'I guess and calculate' every now and then; a habit of -chewing tobacco" ("We'll need a cuspidor," said Ailie, _sotto voce_); -"and a revolver in his wee hip-pocket. Oh, the darling! I can see him -quite plainly." - -"Mercy on us!" cried the maid, Kate, and fled the room all in a tremor -at the idea of the revolver. - -"You may say what you like, but I cannot get over his being an -American," said Bell, solemnly. "The dollar's everything in America, and -they're so independent!" - -"Terrible! terrible!" said her brother, ironically, breaking into -another egg fiercely with his knife, as if he were decapitating the -President of the United States. - -Ailie laughed again. "Dear, dear Bell!" she said, "it sounds quite -Scotch. A devotion to the dollar is a good sound basis for a Scotch -character. Remember there are about a hundred bawbees in a dollar: just -think of the dollar in bawbees, and you'll not be surprised that the -Americans prize it so much." "Renegade!" said Bell, shaking a spoon at -her. "Provincial!" retorted Ailie, shaking a fork at Bell, - - '"Star of Peace, to wanderers weary, - Bright the beams that shine on me. - ---children, be quiet," half-sung, half-said their brother. "Bell, you -are a blether; Ailie, you are a cosmopolitan, a thing accursed. That's -what Edinburgh and Brussels and your too brisk head have done for you. -Just bring yourself to our poor parochial point of view, and tell me, -both of you, what you propose to do with this young gentleman from -Chicago when you get him." - -"Change his stockings and give him a good tea," said Bell, promptly, as -if she had been planning it for weeks. "He'll be starving of hunger and -damp with snow." - -"There's something more than dry hose and high tea to the making of a -man," said her brother. "You can't keep that up for a dozen years." - -"Oh, you mean education!" said Bell, resignedly. "That's not in my -department at all." - -Ailie expressed her views with calm, soft deliberation, as if she, too, -had been thinking of nothing else for weeks, which was partly the case. -"I suppose," she said, "he'll go to the grammar-school, and get a good -grounding on the classic side, and then to the university. I will just -love to help him so long as he's at the grammar-school. That's what -I should have been, Dan, if you had let me--a teacher. I hope he's a -bright boy, for I simply cannot stand what Bell calls--calls--" - -"Diffies," suggested Bell. - -"Diffies; yes, I can _not_ stand diffies. Being half a Dyce I can hardly -think he will be a diffy. If he's the least like his father, he may be a -little wild at first, but at least he'll be good company, which makes up -for a lot, and good-hearted, quick in perception, fearless, and--" - -"And awful funny," suggested Bell, beaming with old, fond, glad -recollections of the brother dead beside his actor wife in far Chicago. - -"Fearless, and good fun," continued Ailie. "Oh, dear Will! what a merry -soul he was. Well, the child cannot be a fool if he's like his father. -American independence, though he has it in--in--in clods, won't do him -any harm at all. I love Americans--do you hear that, Bell Dyce?--because -they beat that stupid old King George, and have been brave in the forest -and wise on the prairie, and feared no face of man, and laughed at -dynasties. I love them because they gave me Emerson, and Whitman, and -Thoreau, and because one of them married my brother William, and was the -mother of his child." - -Dan Dyce nodded; he never quizzed his sister Ailie when it was her heart -that spoke and her eyes were sparkling. - -"The first thing you should learn him," said Miss Dyce, "is 'God Save -the Queen.' It's a splendid song altogether; I'm glad I'm of a kingdom -every time I hear it at a meeting, for it's all that's left of the olden -notions the Dyces died young or lost their money for. You'll learn him -that, Ailie, or I'll be very vexed with you. I'll put flesh on his bones -with my cooking if you put the gentleman in him." - -It was Bell's idea that a gentleman talked a very fine English accent -like Ailie, and carried himself stately like Ailie, and had wise and -witty talk for rich or poor like Ailie. - -"I'm not so sure about the university," she went on. "Such stirks come -out of it sometimes; look at poor Maclean, the minister! They tell me he -could speak Hebrew if he got anybody to speak it back slow to him, but -just imagine the way he puts on his clothes! And his wife manages him -not so bad in broad Scotch. I think we could do nothing better than make -the boy a lawyer; it's a trade looked up to, and there's money in it, -though I never could see the need of law myself if folk would only be -agreeable. He could go into Dan's office whenever he is old enough." - -"A lawyer!" cried her brother. "You have first of all to see that he's -not an ass." - -"And what odds would that make to a lawyer?" said Bell, quickly, -snapping her eyes at the brother she honestly thought the wisest man in -Scotland. - -"Bell," said he, "as I said before, you're a haivering body--nothing -else, though I'll grant you bake no' a bad scone. And as for you, Ailie, -you're beginning, like most women, at the wrong end. The first thing to -do with your nephew is to teach him to be happy, for it's a habit that -has to be acquired early, like the taste for pease-brose." - -"You began gey early yourself," said Bell. "Mother used to say that -she was aye tickling your feet till you laughed when you were a baby. I -sometimes think that she did not stop it soon enough." - -"If I had to educate myself again, and had not a living to make, I would -leave out a good many things the old dominie thought needful. What was -yon awful thing again?--mensuration. To sleep well and eat anything, -fear the face of nobody in bashfulness, to like dancing, and be able to -sing a good bass or tenor--that's no bad beginning in the art of life. -There's a fellow Brodie yonder in the kirk choir, who seems to me -happier than a king when he's getting in a fine boom-boom of bass to the -tune Devizes; he puts me all out at my devotions on a Lord's day with -envy of his accomplishment." - -"What! envy too!" said Alison. "Murder, theft, and envy--what a -brother!" - -"Yes, envy too, the commonest and ugliest of our sins," said Mr. Dyce. -"I never met man or woman who lacked it, though many never know they -have it. I hope the great thing is to be ashamed to feel it, for that's -all that I can boast of myself. When I was a boy at the school there was -another boy, a great friend of my own, was chosen to compete for a prize -I was thought incapable of taking, so that I was not on the list. I -envied him to hatred--almost; and saying my bits of prayers at night I -prayed that he might win. I felt ashamed of my envy, and set the better -Daniel Dyce to wrestle with the Daniel Dyce who was not quite so big. It -was a sair fight, I can assure you. I found the words of my prayer and -my wishes considerably at variance--" - -"Like me and 'Thy will be done' when we got the word of brother -William," said Bell. - -27 - -"But my friend--dash him!--got the prize. I suppose God took a kind -of vizzy down that night and saw the better Dan Dyce was doing his -desperate best against the other devil's--Dan, who mumbled the prayer on -the chance He would never notice. There was no other way of accounting -for it, for that confounded boy got the prize, and he was not half so -clever as myself, and that was Alick Maitland. Say nothing about envy, -Ailie; I fear we all have some of it until we are perhaps well up in -years, and understand that between the things we envy and the luck we -have there is not much to choose. If I got all I wanted, myself, the -world would have to be much enlarged. It does not matter a docken leaf. -Well, as I was saying when my learned friend interrupted me, I would -have this young fellow healthy and happy and interested in everything. -There are men I see who would mope and weary in the middle of a country -fair--God help them! I want to stick pins in them sometimes and -make them jump. They take as little interest in life as if they were -undertakers." - -"Hoots! nobody could weary in this place at any rate," said Bell -briskly. "Look at the life and gayety that's in it. Talk about London! I -can hardly get my sleep at night quite often with the traffic. And such -things are always happening in it--births and marriages, engagements and -tea-parties, new patterns at Miss Minto's, two coaches in the day, and -sometimes somebody doing something silly that will keep you laughing -half the week." - -"But it's not quite so lively as Chicago," said Mr. Dyce. "There has not -been a man shot in this neighborhood since the tinker kind of killed -his wife (as the fiscal says) with the pistol. You'll have heard of him? -When the man was being brought on the scaffold for it, and the minister -asked if he had anything to say before he suffered the extreme penalty -of the law, 'All I have got to say,' he answered, starting to greet, 'is -that this'll be an awful lesson to me.'" - -"That's one of your old ones," said Bell; but even an old one was -welcome in Dyce's house on New Year's day, and the three of them laughed -at the story as if it had newly come from London in Ailie's precious -_Punch_. The dog fell into a convulsion of merriment, as if inward -chuckles tormented him--as queer a dog as ever was, neither Scotch -terrier nor Skye, Dandy Dinmont nor Dashshund, but just dog--dark -wire-haired behind, short ruddy-haired in front, a stump tail, a face so -fringed you could only see its eyes when the wind blew. Mr. Dyce put -down his hand and scratched it behind the ear. "Don't laugh, Footles," -he said. "I would not laugh if I were you, Footles--it's just an old -one. Many a time you've heard it before, sly rogue. One would think you -wanted to borrow money." If you could hear Dan Dyce speak to his dog, -you would know at once he was a bachelor: only bachelors and bairnless -men know dogs. - -"I hope and trust he'll have decent clothes to wear, and none of their -American rubbish," broke in Bell, back to her nephew again. "It's -all nonsense about the bashed hat; but you can never tell what way an -American play-actor will dress a bairn: there's sure to be something -daft-like about him--a starry waistcoat or a pair of spats--and we must -make him respectable like other boys in the place." - -"I would say Norfolk suits, the same as the banker's boys," suggested -Ailie. "I think the banker's boys always look so smart and neat." - -"Anything with plenty of pockets in it," said Mr. Dyce. "At the age -of ten a boy would prefer his clothes to be all pockets. By George! an -entire suit of pockets, with a new penny in every pocket for luck, would -be a great treat," and he chuckled at the idea, making a mental note of -it for a future occasion. - -"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Bell, emphatically, for here she was in her -own department. "The boy is going to be a Scotch boy. I'll have the kilt -on him, or nothing." - -"The kilt!" said Mr. Dyce. - -"The kilt!" cried Ailie. - -Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! - -It was a loud knocking at the front door. They stopped the talk to -listen, and they heard the maid go along the lobby from the kitchen. -When she opened the door, there came in the cheerful discord of -the street, the sound of a pounding drum, the fifes still busy, -the orange-hawker's cry, but over all they heard her put her usual -interrogation to visitors, no matter what their state or elegance. - -"Well, what is't?" she asked, and though they could not see her, they -knew she would have the door just a trifle open, with her shoulder -against it, as if she was there to repel some chieftain of a wild -invading clan. Then they heard her cry, "Mercy on me!" and her footsteps -hurrying to the parlor door. She threw it open, and stood with some one -behind her. - -"What do you think? Here's brother William's wean!" she exclaimed, in a -gasp. - -"My God! Where is he?" cried Bell, the first to find her tongue. "He's -no hurt, is he?" - -"It's no' a him at all--it's a her!" shrieked Kate, throwing up her -arms in consternation, and stepping aside she gave admission to a little -girl. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE orphan child of William and Mary Dyce, dead, the pair of them, in -the far-off city of Chicago, stepped, quite serenely, into an astounded -company. There were three Dyces in a row in front of her, and the droll -dog Footles at her feet, and behind her, Kate, the servant, wringing her -apron as if it had newly come from the washing-boyne, her bosom heaving. -Ten eyes (if you could count the dog's, hidden by his tousy fringe) -stared at the child a moment, and any ordinary child would have been -much put out; but this was no common child, or else she felt at once the -fond kind air of home. I will give you her picture in a sentence or -two. She was black-haired, dark and quick in the eye, not quite pale -but olive in complexion, with a chin she held well up, and a countenance -neither shy nor bold, but self-possessed. Fur on her neck and hood (Jim -Molyneux's last gift), and a muff that held her arms up to the elbows, -gave her an aspect of picture-book cosiness that put the maid in mind at -once of the butcher's Christmas calendar. - -It was the dog that first got over the astonishment: he made a dive at -her with little friendly growls, and rolled on his back at her feet, to -paddle with his four paws in the air, which was his way of showing he -was in the key for fun. - -With a cry of glee she threw the muff on the floor and plumped beside -him, put her arms about his body and buried her face in his fringe. His -tail went waving, joyous, like a banner. "Doggie, doggie, you love me," -said she, in an accent that was anything but American. "Let us pause and -consider--you will not leave this house till I boil you an egg." - -"God bless me, what child's this?" cried Bell, coming to herself with a -start, and, pouncing on her, she lifted her to her feet. Ailie sank -on her hands and knees and stared in the visitor's face. "The kilt, -indeed!" said Mr. Dyce to himself. "This must be a warlock wean, for if -it has not got the voice and sentiment of Wanton Wully Oliver I'm losing -my wits." - -"Tell me this, quick, are you Lennox Dyce?" said Bell, all trembling, -devouring the little one with her eyes. - -"Well, I just guess I am," replied the child, calmly, with the dog -licking her chin. "Say, are you Auntie Bell?" and this time there was no -doubt about the American accent. Up went her mouth to them to be kissed, -composedly: they lost no time, but fell upon her, Ailie half in tears -because at once she saw below the childish hood so much of brother -William. - -"Lennox, dear, you should not speak like that; who in all the world -taught you to speak like that?" said Bell, unwrapping her. - -"Why, I thought that was all right here," said the stranger. "That's the -way the bell-man speaks." - -"Bless me! Do you know the bell-man?" cried Miss Dyce. - -"I rang his old bell for him this morning--didn't you hear me?" was the -surprising answer. "He's a nice man; he liked me. I'd like him too if he -wasn't so tired. He was too tired to speak sense; all he would say was, -'I've lost the place, let us pause and consider,' and 'Try another egg.' -I said I would give him a quarter if he'd let me ring his bell, and he -said he'd let me do it for nothing, and my breakfast besides. 'You'll -not leave this house till I boil an egg for you'--that's what he said, -and the poor man was so tired! And his legs were dreff'le poorly." Again -her voice was the voice of Wully Oliver; the sentiment, as the Dyces -knew, was the slogan of his convivial hospitality. - -"The kilt, indeed!" said Mr. Dyce, feeling extraordinarily foolish, and, -walking past them, he went up-stairs and hurriedly put the pea-sling in -his pocket. - -When he came down, young America was indifferently pecking at her second -breakfast with Footles on her knee, an aunt on either side of her, and -the maid Kate with a tray in her hand for excuse, open-mouthed, half in -at the door. - -"Well, as I was saying, Jim--that's my dear Mr. Molyneux, you know--got -busy with a lot of the boys once he landed off that old ship, and so he -said, 'Bud, this is the--the--justly cel'brated Great Britain; I know -by the boys; they're so lively when they're by themselves. I was -'prehensive we might have missed it in the dark, but it's all right.' -And next day he bought me this muff and things and put me on the -cars--say, what funny cars you have!--and said 'Good-bye, Bud; just go -right up to Maryfield, and change there. If you're lost anywhere on the -island just holler out good and loud, and I'll hear!' He pretended he -wasn't caring, but he was pretty blinky 'bout the eyes, and I saw he -wasn't anyway gay, so I never let on the way I felt myself." - -She suggested the tone and manner of the absent Molyneux in a fashion -to put him in the flesh before them. Kate almost laughed out loud at the -oddity of it; Ailie and her brother were astounded at the cleverness of -the mimicry; Bell clinched her hands, and said for the second time that -day, "Oh! that Molyneux, if I had him!" - -"He's a nice man, Jim. I can't tell you how I love him--and he gave -me heaps of candy at the depot," proceeded the unabashed new-comer. -"'Change at Edinburgh,' he said; 'you'll maybe have time to run into the -Castle and see the Duke; give him my love, but not my address. When you -get to Maryfield hop out slick and ask for your uncle Dyce.' And then he -said, did Jim, 'I hope he ain't a loaded Dyce, seein' he's Scotch, and -it's the festive season.'" - -"The adorable Jim!" said Ailie. "We might have known." - -"I got on all right," proceeded the child, "but I didn't see the Duke of -Edinburgh; there wasn't time, and uncle wasn't at Maryfield, but a man -put me on his mail carriage and drove me right here. He said I was a -caution. My! it was cold. Say, is it always weather like this here?" - -"Sometimes it's like this, and sometimes it's just ordinary Scotch -weather," said Mr. Dyce, twinkling at her through his spectacles. - -"I was dre'ffle sleepy in the mail, and the driver wrapped me up, and -when I came into this town in the dark he said, 'Walk right down there -and rap at the first door you see with a brass man's hand for a knocker; -that's Mr. Dyce's house.' I came down, and there wasn't any brass man, -but I saw the knocker. I couldn't reach up to it, so when I saw a man -going into the church with a lantern in his hand. I went up to him and -pulled his coat. I knew he'd be all right going into a church. He told -me he was going to ring the bell, and I said I'd give him a quarter--oh, -I said that before. When the bell was finished he took me to his house -for luck--that was what he said--and he and his wife got right up and -boiled eggs. They said I was a caution, too, and they went on boiling -eggs, and I couldn't eat more than two and a white though I tried _and_ -tried. I think I slept a good while in their house; I was so fatigued, -and they were all right, they loved me, I could see that. And I liked -them some myself, though they must be mighty poor, for they haven't -any children. Then the bellman took me to this house, and rapped at -the door, and went away pretty quick for him before anybody came to -it, because he said he was plain-soled--what's plain-soled anyhow?--and -wasn't a lucky first-foot on a New Year's morning.'' - -"It beats all, that's what it does!" cried Bell. "My poor wee -whitterick! Were ye no' frightened on the sea?" - -"Whitterick, whitterick," repeated the child to herself, and Ailie, -noticing, was glad that this was certainly not a diffy. Diffies never -interest themselves in new words; diffies never go inside themselves -with a new fact as a dog goes under a table with a bone. - -"Were you not frightened when you were on the sea?" repeated Bell. - -"No," said the child, promptly. "Jim was there all right, you see, and -he knew all about it. He said,'Trust in Providence, and if it's _very_ -stormy, trust in Providence _and_ the Scotch captain.'" - -"I declare! the creature must have some kind of sense in him, too," said -Bell, a little mollified by this compliment to Scots sea-captains. And -all the Dyces fed their eyes upon this wonderful wean that had fallen -among them. 'Twas happy in that hour with them, as if in a miracle they -had been remitted to their own young years; their dwelling was at long -last furnished! She had got into the good graces of Footles as if she -had known him all her life. - -"Say, uncle, this is a funny dog," was her next remark. "Did God make -him?" - -"Well--yes, I suppose God did," said Mr. Dyce, taken a bit aback. - -"Well, isn't He the damedst! This dog beats Mrs. Molyneux's Dodo, and -Dodo was a looloo. What sort of a dog is he? Scotch terrier?" - -"Mostly not," said her uncle, chuckling. "It's really an improvement on -the Scotch terrier. There's later patents in him, you might say. He's a -sort of mosaic; indeed, when I think of it you might describe him as a -pure mosaic dog." - -"A Mosaic dog!" exclaimed Lennox. "Then he must have come from -scriptural parts. Perhaps I'll get playing with him Sundays. Not playing -loud out, you know, but just being happy. I love being happy, don't -you?" - -"It's my only weakness," said Mr. Dyce, emphatically, blinking through -his glasses. "The other business men in the town don't approve of me for -it; they call it frivolity. But it comes so easily to me I never charge -it in the bills, though a sense of humor should certainly be worth 12s. -6d. a smile in the Table of Fees. It would save many a costly plea." - -"Didn't you play on Sunday in Chicago?" asked Ailie. - -"Not out loud. Poppa said he was bound to have me Scotch in one thing -at least, even if it took a strap. That was after mother died. He'd just -read to me Sundays, and we went to church till we had pins and needles. -We had the Reverend Ebenezer Paul Frazer, M.A., Presbyterian Church on -the Front. He just preached _and_ preached till we had pins and needles -all over." - -"My poor Lennox!" exclaimed Ailie, with feeling. - -"Oh, I'm all right!" said young America, blithely. "I'm not kicking." - -Dan Dyce, with his head to the side, took off his spectacles and rubbed -them clean with his handkerchief; put them on again, looked at his niece -through them, and then at Ailie, with some motion struggling in his -countenance. Ailie for a moment suppressed some inward convulsion, and -turned her gaze embarrassed from him to Bell, and Bell catching the eyes -of both of them could contain her joy no longer. They laughed till the -tears came, and none more heartily than brother William's child. She had -so sweet a laugh that there and then the Dyces thought it the loveliest -sound they had ever heard in their house. Her aunts would have devoured -her with caresses. Her uncle stood over her and beamed, rubbing his -hands, expectant every moment of another manifestation of the oddest -kind of child mind he had ever encountered. And Kate swept out and in -between the parlor and the kitchen on trivial excuses, generally with -something to eat for the child, who had eaten so much in the house of -Wanton Wully Oliver that she was indifferent to the rarest delicacies of -Bell's celestial grocery. - -"You're just--just a wee witch!" said Bell, fondling the child's hair. -"Do you know, that man Molyneux--" - -"Jim," suggested Lennox. - -"I would Jim him if I had him! That man Molyneux in all his scrimping -little letters never said whether you were a boy or a girl, and we -thought a Lennox was bound to be a boy, and all this time we have been -expecting a boy." - -"I declare!" said the little one, with the most amusing drawl, a memory -of Molyneux. "Why, I always was a girl, far back as I can remember. -Nobody never gave me the chance to be a boy. I s'pose I hadn't the -clothes for the part, and they just pushed me along anyhow in frocks. -Would you'd rather I was a boy?" - -"Not a bit! We have one in the house already, and he's a fair -heart-break," said her aunt, with a look towards Mr. Dyce. "We had just -made up our mind to dress you in the kilt when your rap came to the -door. At least, I had made up my mind, the others are so stubborn. And -bless me! lassie, where's your luggage? You surely did not come all the -way from Chicago with no more than what you have on your back?" - -"You'll be tickled to death to see my trunks!" said Lennox. "I've heaps -and heaps of clothes and six dolls. They're all coming with the coach. -They wanted me to wait for the coach too, but the mail man who called me -a caution said he was bound to have a passenger for luck on New Year's -Day, and I was in a hurry to get home anyway." - -"Home!" When she said that, the two aunts swept on her like a billow and -bore her, dog and all, up-stairs to her room. She was almost blind for -want of sleep. - -They hovered over her quick-fingered, airy as bees, stripping her for -bed. She knelt a moment and in one breath said: - -"God - bless - father - and - mother - and - Jim - and - Mrs. - Molyneux -- and - my - aunts - in - Scotland - and Uncle - Dan - and - everybody - -good - night." - -And was asleep in the sunlight of the room as soon as her head fell on -the pillow. - -"She prayed for her father and mother," whispered Bell, with Footles -in her arms, as they stood beside the bed. "It's not--it's not quite -Presbyterian to pray for the dead; it's very American, indeed you might -call it papist." - -Ailie's face reddened, but she said nothing. - -"And do you know this?" said Bell, shamefacedly, "I do it myself; upon -my word, I do it myself. I'm often praying for father and mother and -William." - -"So am I," confessed Alison, plainly relieved. "I'm afraid I'm a poor -Presbyterian, for I never knew there was anything wrong in doing so." - -Below, in the parlor, Mr. Dyce stood looking into the white garden, a -contented man, humming: - - "Star of Peace, to wanderers weary." - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SHE was a lucky lassie, this of ours, to have come home to her father's -Scotland on that New Year's Day, for there is no denying that it is not -always gay in Scotland, contrary land, that, whether we be deep down in -the waist of the world and afar from her, or lying on her breast, -chains us to her with links of iron and gold--stern tasks and happy days -remembered, ancient stories, austerity and freedom, cold weather on -moor and glen, warm hearths and burning hearts. She might have seen this -burgh first in its solemnity, on one of the winter days when it shivers -and weeps among its old memorials, and the wild geese cry more constant -over the house-tops, and the sodden gardens, lanes, wynds, and wells, -the clanging spirits of old citizens dead and gone, haunting the place -of their follies and their good times, their ridiculous ideals, their -mistaken ambitions, their broken plans. Ah, wild geese! wild geese! old -ghosts that cry to-night above my dwelling, I feel--I feel and know! -She might have come, the child, to days of fast, and sombre dark drugget -garments, dissonant harsh competing kettle bells, or spoiled harvests, -poor fishings, hungry hours. It was good for her, and it is the making -of my story, that she came not then, but with the pure white cheerful -snow, to ring the burgh bell in her childish escapade, and usher in with -merriment the New Year, and begin her new life happily in the Old World. - -She woke at noon among the scented curtains, in linen sea-breeze -bleached, under the camceil roof that all children love, for it makes -a garret like the ancestral cave and in rainy weather they can hear the -pattering feet of foes above them. She heard the sound of John Taggart's -drum, and the fifing of "Happy we've been a' thegether," and turning, -found upon her pillow a sleeping doll that woke whenever she raised it -up, and stared at her in wonderment. - -"Oh!--Oh!--Oh! you roly-poly blonde!" cried the child in ecstasy, -hugging it to her bosom and covering it with kisses. "I'm as glad as -anything. Do you see the lovely little room? I'll tell you right here -what your name is: it's Alison; no, it's Bell; no, it's Alibel for your -two just lovely, lovely aunties." - -Up she rose, sleep banished, with a sense of cheerfulness and -expectation, nimbly dressed herself, and slid down the banisters to -tumble plump at the feet of her Auntie Bell in the lobby. - -"Mercy on us! You'll break your neck; are you hurt?" cried Aunt Bell. -"I'm not kicking," said the child, and the dog waved furiously a -gladsome tail. A log fire blazed and crackled and hissed in the parlor, -and Mr. Dyce tapped time with his fingers on a chair-back to an internal -hymn. - -"My! ain't I the naughty girl to be snoozling away like a gopher in a -hole all day? Your clock's stopped, Uncle Dan." - -Mr. Dyce looked very guilty, and coughed, rubbing his chin. "You're a -noticing creature," said he. "I declare it _has_ stopped. Well, well!" -and his sister Bell plainly enjoyed some amusing secret. - -"Your uncle is always a little daft, my dear," she said. - -"I would rather be daft than dismal," he retorted, cleaning his glasses. - -"It's a singular thing that the clocks in our lobby and parlor always -stop on the New Year's Day, Lennox." - -"Bud; please, say Bud," pleaded the little one. "Nobody ever calls me -Lennox 'cept when I'm doing something wrong and almost going to get a -whipping." - -"Very well, Bud, then. This clock gets something wrong with it every New -Year's Day, for your uncle, that man there, wants the folk who call -never to know the time so that they'll bide the longer." - -"Tuts!" said Uncle Dan, who had thought this was his own particular -recipe for joviality, and that they had never discovered it. - -"You have come to a hospitable town, Bud," said Ailie. "There are -convivial old gentlemen on the other side of the street who have got up -a petition to the magistrates to shut up the inn and the public-house in -the afternoon. They say it is in the interests of temperance, but it's -really to compel their convivial friends to visit themselves." - -"I signed it myself," confessed Mr. Dyce, "and I'm only half convivial. -I'm not bragging; I might have been more convivial if it didn't so -easily give me an aching head. What's more cheerful than a crowd in the -house and the clash going? A fine fire, a good light, and turn about -at a story! The happiest time I ever had in my life was when I broke my -leg; so many folk called, it was like a month of New Year's Days. I was -born with a craving for company. Mother used to have a superstition that -if a knife or spoon dropped on the floor from the table it betokened a -visitor, and I used to drop them by the dozen. But, dear me! here's a -wean with a doll, and where in the world did she get it?" - -Bud, with the doll under one arm and the dog tucked under the other, -laughed up in his face with shy perception. - -"Oh, you funny man!" she exclaimed. "I guess you know all right who -put Alibel on my pillow. Why! I could have told you were a doll man: -I noticed you turning over the pennies in your pants' pocket, same as -poppa used when he saw any nice clean little girl like me, and he was -the dolliest man in all Chicago. Why, there was treasury days when he -just rained dolls." - -"That was William, sure enough," said Mr. Dyce. "There's no need for -showing us _your_ strawberry mark. It was certainly William. If it had -only been dolls!" - -"Her name's Alibel, for her two aunties," said the child. - -"Tuts!" said Mr. Dyce. "If I had thought you meant to honor them that -way I would have made her twins. But you see I did not know; it was a -delicate transaction as it was. I could not tell very well whether a -doll or a--a--or a fountain-pen would be the most appropriate present -for a ten-year-old niece from Chicago, and I risked the doll. I hope it -fits." - -"Like a halo! It's just sweet!" said the ecstatic maiden, and rescued -one of its limbs from the gorge of Footles. - -It got about the town that to Dyces' house had come a wonderful American -child who talked language like a minister: the news was partly the news -of the mail-driver and Wully Oliver, but mostly the news of Kate, who, -from the moment Lennox had been taken from her presence and put to bed, -had dwelt upon the window-sashes, letting no one pass that side of the -street without her confidence. - -"You never heard the like! No' the size of a shilling worth of -ha'pennies, and she came all the way by her lee-lone in the coach from -Chickagoo--that's in America. There's to be throng times in this house -now, I'm tellin' you, with brother William's wean." - -As the forenoon advanced Kate's intelligence grew more surprising: to -the new-comer were ascribed a score of characteristics such as had never -been seen in the town before. For one thing (would Kate assure them), -she could imitate Wully Oliver till you almost saw whiskers on her and -could smell the dram. She was thought to be a boy to start with, but -that was only their ignorance in Chickagoo, for the girl was really a -lassie, and had kists of lassie's clothes coming with the coach. - -The Dyces' foreigner was such a grand sensation that it marred the -splendor of the afternoon band parade, though John Taggart was unusually -glorious, walking on the very backs of his heels, his nose in the -heavens, and his drumsticks soaring and circling over his head in a way -to make the spectators giddy. Instead of following the band till its -_repertoire_ was suddenly done at five minutes to twelve at the door of -Maggie White, the wine and spirit merchant, there were many that hung -about the street in the hope of seeing the American. They thought they -would know her at once by the color of her skin, which some said would -be yellow, and others maintained would be brown. A few less patient and -more privileged boldly visited the house of Dyce to make their New-Year -compliments and see the wonder for themselves. - -The American had her eye on them. - -She had her eye on the Sheriffs lady, who was so determinedly affable, -so pleased with everything the family of Dyce might say, do, or possess, -and only five times ventured to indicate there were others, by a mention -of "the dear Lady Anne--so nice, so simple, so unaffected, so amiable." - -On Miss Minto of the crimson cloak, who kept her deaf ear to the sisters -and her good one to their brother, and laughed heartily at all his -little jokes even before they were half made, or looked at him with -large, soft, melting eyes and her lips apart, which her glass had told -her was an aspect ravishing. The sisters smiled at each other when she -had gone and looked comically at Dan, but he, poor man, saw nothing, but -just that Mary Minto was a good deal fatter than she used to be. - -On the doctor's two sisters, late come from a farm in the country, -marvellously at ease so long as the conversation abode in gossip about -the neighbors, but in a silent terror when it rose from persons to -ideas, as it once had done when Lady Anne had asked them what they -thought of didactic poetry, and one of them said it was a thing she was -very fond of, and then fell in a swound. - -On the banker man, the teller, who was in hopeless love with Ailie, as -was plain from the way he devoted himself to Bell. - -On Mr. Dyce's old retired partner, Mr. Cleland, who smelt of cloves and -did not care for tea. - -On P. & A. MacGlashan, who had come in specially to see if the stranger -knew his brother Albert, who, he said, was "in a Somewhereville in -Manitoba." - -On the Provost and his lady, who were very old, and petted each other -when they thought themselves unobserved. - -On the soft, kind, simple, content and happy ladies lately married. - -On the others who would like to be. - -Yes, Bud had her eye on them all. They never guessed how much they -entertained her as they genteelly sipped their tea, or wine, or ginger -cordial,--the women of them--or coughed a little too artificially over -the New-Year glass--the men. - -"Wee Pawkie, that's what she is--just Wee Pawkie!" said the Provost when -he got out, and so far it summed up everything. - -The ladies could not tear away home fast enough to see if they had not a -remnant of cloth that could be made into such a lovely dress as that of -Dyce's niece for one of their own children. "Mark my words!" they said; -"that child will be ruined between them. She's her father's image, and -he went and married a poor play-actress, and stayed a dozen years away -from Scotland, and never wrote home a line." - -So many people came to the house, plainly for no reason but to see the -new-comer, that Ailie at last made up her mind to satisfy all by -taking her out for a walk. The strange thing was that in the street the -populace displayed indifference or blindness. Bud might have seen no -more sign of interest in her than the hurried glance of a passer-by; -no step slowed to show that the most was being made of the opportunity. -There had been some women at their windows when she came out of the -house sturdily walking by Aunt Ailie's side, with her hands in her muff, -and her keen black eyes peeping from under the fur of her hood; but -these women drew in their heads immediately. Ailie, who knew her native -town, was conscious that from behind the curtains the scrutiny was keen. -She smiled to herself as she walked demurely down the street. - -"Do you feel anything, Bud?" she asked. - -Bud naturally failed to comprehend. - -"You ought to feel something at your back; I'm ticklish all down the -back because of a hundred eyes." - -"I know," said the astounding child. "They think we don't notice, but -I guess God sees them," and yet she had apparently never glanced at the -windows herself, nor looked round to discover passers-by staring over -their shoulders at her aunt and her. - -For a moment Ailie felt afraid. She dearly loved a quick perception, but -it was a gift, she felt, a niece might have too young. - -"How in the world did you know that, Bud?" she asked. - -"I just guessed they'd be doing it," said Bud, "'cause it's what I would -do if I saw a little girl from Scotland walking down the lake front in -Chicago. Is it dreff'le rude, Aunt Ailie?" - -"So they say, so they say," said her aunt, looking straight forward, -with her shoulders back and her eyes level, flushing at the temples. -"But I'm afraid we can't help it. It's undignified--to be seen doing it. -I can see you're a real Dyce, Bud. The other people who are not Dyces -lose a great deal of fun. They must be very much bored with each other. -Do you know, child, I think you and I are going to be great friends--you -and I and Aunt Bell and Uncle Dan." - -"And the Mosaic dog," added Bud with warmth. "I love that old dog so -much that I could--I could eat him. He's the becomingest dog! Why, -here he is!" And it was indeed Footles who hurled himself at them, a -rapturous mass of unkempt hair and convulsive barkings, having escaped -from the imprisonment of Kate's kitchen by climbing over her shoulders -and out across the window-sash. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -"I HEARD all about you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan from pop--from -father," said Bud, as they walked back to the house. She had learned -already from example how sweeter sounded "father" than the term she had -used in America. "He was mighty apt to sit up nights talking about you -all. But I don't quite place Kate: he never mentioned Kate." - -"Oh, she's a new addition," explained Ailie. "Kate is the maid, you -know: she came to us long after your father left home, but she's been -with us five years now, and that's long enough to make her one of the -family." - -"My! Five years! She ain't--she isn't much of a quitter, is she? I guess -you must have tacked her down," said Bud. "You don't get helps in -Chicago to linger round the dear old spot like that; they get all hot -running from base to base, same as if it was a game of ball. But she's a -pretty--pretty broad girl, isn't she? She couldn't run very fast; -that'll be the way she stays." - -Ailie smiled. "Ah! So that's Chicago, too, is it? You must have been -in the parlor a good many times at five-o'clock tea to have grasped -the situation at your age. I suppose your Chicago ladies lower the -temperature of their tea weeping into it the woes they have about their -domestics? It's another Anglo-Saxon link." - -"Mrs. Jim said sensible girls that would stay long enough to cool down -after the last dash were getting that scarce you had to go out after -them with a gun. You didn't really, you know; that was just Mrs. Jim's -way of putting it." - -"I understand," said Alison, unable to hide her amusement. "You seem to -have picked up that way of putting it yourself." - -"Am I speaking slang?" asked the child, glancing up quickly and -reddening. "Father pro--prosisted I wasn't to speak slang nor chew gum; -he said it was things no real lady would do in the old country, and that -I was to be a well-off English undefied. You must be dreff'le shocked, -Auntie Ailie?" - -"Oh no," said Ailie cheerfully; "I never was shocked in all my life, -though they say I'm a shocker myself. I'm only surprised a little at the -possibilities of the English language. I've hardly heard you use a word -of slang yet, and still you scarcely speak a sentence in which there's -not some novelty. It's like Kate's first attempt at sheep's-head broth: -we were familiar with all the ingredients except the horns, and we knew -them elsewhere." - -"_That's_ all right, then," said Bud, relieved. "But Mrs. Jim had funny -ways of putting things, and I s'pose I picked them up. I can't help -it--I pick up so fast. Why, I had scarlatina twice! and I picked up her -way of zaggerating: often I zaggerate dreff'le, and say I wrote all the -works of Shakespeare, when I really didn't, you know. Mrs. Jim didn't -mean that she had to go out hunting for helps with a gun; all she meant -was that they were getting harder and harder to get, and mighty hard to -keep when you got them." - -"I know," said Alison. "It's an old British story, you'll hear it often -from our visitors, if you're spared. But we're lucky with our Kate; we -seem to give her complete satisfaction, or, at all events, she puts up -with us. When she feels she can't put up with us any longer, she hurls -herself on the morning newspaper to look at the advertisements for -ladies'-maids and housekeepers with L50 a year, and makes up her mind -to apply at once, but can never find a pen that suits her before we make -her laugh. The servant in the house of Dyce who laughs is lost. You'll -like Kate, Bud. We like her; and I notice that if you like anybody they -generally like you back." - -"I'm so glad," said Bud, with enthusiasm. "If there's one thing under -the canopy I am, I'm a liker." They had reached the door of the house -without seeing the slightest sign that the burgh was interested in them, -but they were no sooner in than a hundred tongues were discussing the -appearance of the little American. Ailie took off Bud's cloak and hood, -and pushed her into the kitchen, with a whisper to her that she was to -make Kate's acquaintance, and be sure and praise her scones, then left -her and flew upstairs, with a pleasant sense of personal good-luck. It -was so sweet to know that brother William's child was anything but a -diffy. - -Bud stood for a moment in the kitchen, bashful, for it must not be -supposed she lacked a childish shyness. Kate, toasting bread at the -fire, turned round and felt a little blate herself, but smiled at her, -such a fine expansive smile, it was bound to put the child at ease. -"Come away in, my dear, and take a bite," said the maid. It is so they -greet you--simple folk!--in the isle of Colonsay. - -The night was coming on, once more with snowy feathers. Wanton Wully lit -the town. He went from lamp to lamp with a ladder, children in his train -chanting: - - "'Leerie, leerie, light the lamps. - Long legs and crooked shanks!'" - -and he expostulating with: "I know you fine, the whole of you; at least -I know the boys. Stop you till I see your mothers!" Miss Minto's shop -was open, and shamefaced lads went dubiously in to buy ladies' white -gloves, for with gloves they tryst their partners here at New Year -balls, and to-night was Samson's fiddle giggling at the inn. The long -tenement lands, as flat and high as cliffs, and built for all eternity, -at first dark gray in the dusk, began to glow in every window, and down -the stairs and from the closes flowed exceeding cheerful sounds. -Green fires of wood and coal sent up a cloud above these dwellings, -tea-kettles jigged and sang. A thousand things were happening in the -street, but for once the maid of Colonsay restrained her interest in the -window. "Tell me this, what did you say your name was?" she asked. - -"I'm Miss Lennox Brenton Dyce," said Bud, primly, "but the miss don't -amount to much till I'm old enough to get my hair up." - -"You must be tired coming so far. All the way from that Chickagoo!" - -"Chicago," suggested Bud, politely. - -"Just that! Chickagoo or Chicago, it depends on the way you spell it," -said Kate, readily. "I was brought up to call it Chickagoo. What a -length to come on New Year's Day! Were you not frightened? -Try one of them brown biscuits. And how are all the people keeping in -America?" - -She asked the question with such tender solicitude that Bud saw no humor -in it, and answered gravely: - -"Pretty spry, thank you. Have you been there?" - -"Me!" cried Kate, with her bosom heaving at the very thought. Then her -Highland vanity came to her rescue. "No," she said, "I have not been -exactly what you might call altogether there, but I had a cousin that -started for Australia and got the length of Paisley. It 'll be a big -place, America? Put butter on it.". - -"The United States of America are bounded on the east by the Atlantic -Ocean, on the west by the Pacific, on the south by Mexico and the Gulf, -and on the north by an imaginary line called Canada. The State of -New York alone is as large as England," said Bud, glibly, repeating a -familiar lesson. - -"What a size!" cried Kate. "Take another of them brown biscuits. -Scotland's not slack neither for size; there's Glasgow and Oban, and -Colonsay and Stornoway. There'll not be hills in America?" - -"There's no hills, just mountains," said Bud. "The chief mountain ranges -are the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. They're about the biggest -mountains in the world." - -"Talking about big things, look at the big pennyworth of milk we get -here," said Kate, producing a can--it was almost the last ditch of her -national pride. - -The child looked gravely into the can, and then glanced shrewdly at the -maid. - -"It isn't a pennyworth," said she, sharply, "it's twopence worth." - -"My stars! how did you know that?" said Kate, much taken aback. - -"'Cause you're bragging. Think I don't know when anybody's bragging?" -said Bud. "And when a body brags about a place or anything, they -zaggerate, and just about double things." - -"You're not canny," said Kate, thrusting the milk-can back hastily on -the kitchen dresser. "Don't spare the butter on your biscuit. They tell -me there's plenty of money in America. I would not wonder, eh?" - -"Why, everybody's got money to throw at the birds there," said Bud, with -some of the accent as well as the favorite phrase of Jim Molyneux. - -"They have little to do; forbye, it's cruelty. Mind you, there's plenty -of money here, too; your uncle has a desperate lot of it. He was wanting -to go away to America and bring you home whenever he heard--whenever -he heard--Will you not try another of them biscuits? It will do you no -harm." - -"I know," said Bud, gravely--"whenever he heard about my father being -dead." - -"I think we're sometimes very stupid, us from Colonsay," said the maid, -regretfully. "I should have kept my mouth shut about your father. Take -_two_ biscuits, my dear; or maybe you would rather have short-cake. -Yes, he was for going there and then--even if it cost a pound, I dare -say--but changed his mind when he heard yon man Molyneux was bringing -you." Footles, snug in the child's lap, shared the biscuits and barked -for more. - - "'I love little Footles, - His coat is so warm, - And if I don't tease him - He'll do me no harm,'" - -said Bud, burying her head in his mane. - -"Good Lord! did you make that yourself, or just keep mind of it?" asked -the astounded Kate. - -"I made it just right here," said Bud, coolly. "Didn't you know I could -make poetry? Why, you poor, perishing soul, I'm just a regular wee--wee -whitterick at poetry! It goes sloshing round in my head, and it's simply -pie for me to make it. Here's another: - - "'Lives of great men oft remind us - We can make our lives sublime, - And, departing, leave behind us - Footprints on the sands of time.' - -I just dash them off. I guess I'll have to get up bright and early -to-morrow and touch that one up some. Mostly you can't make them good -the first try, and then you're bound to go all over them from the -beginning and put the good in here and there. That's art, Jim says. He -knew an artist who'd finish a picture with everything quite plain about -it, and then say, 'Now for the art!' and fuzz it all over with a hard -brush." - -"My stars, what things you know!" exclaimed the maid. "You're -clever--tremendous clever! What's your age?" - -"I was bom mighty well near eleven years ago," said Bud, as if she were -a centenarian. - -Now it is not wise to tell a child like Lennox Dyce that she is clever, -though a maid from Colonsay could scarcely be expected to know that. -Till Bud had landed on the British shore she had no reason to think -herself anything out of the ordinary. Jim Molyneux and his wife, with no -children of their own, and no knowledge of children except the elderly -kind that play in theatres, had treated her like a person little younger -than themselves, and saw no marvel in her quickness, that is common -enough with Young America. But Bud, from Maryfield to her uncle's door, -had been a "caution" to the plainly admiring mail-driver; a kind of -fairy princess to Wanton Wully Oliver and his wife; the surprise of -her aunts had been only half concealed, and here was the maid in an -undisguised enchantment! The vanity of the ten-year-old was stimulated; -for the first time in her life she felt decidedly superior. - -"It was very brave of me to come all this way in a ship at ten years -old," she proceeded. - -"I once came to Oban along with a steamer my-self," said Kate, "but och, -that's nothing, for I knew a lot of the drovers. Just fancy you coming -from America! Were you not lonely?" - -"I was dre'ffle lonely," said Bud, who, in fact, had never known a -moment's dulness across the whole Atlantic. "There was I leaving my -native land, perhaps never to set eyes on its shores evermore, and -coming to a far country I didn't know the least thing about. I was -leaving all my dear young friends, and the beautiful Mrs. Molyneux, and -her faithful dog Dodo, and--" Here she squeezed a tear from her eyes, -and stopped to think of circumstances even more touching. - -"My poor wee hen!" cried Kate, distressed. "Don't you greet, and I'll -buy you something." - -"And I didn't know what sort of uncle and aunties they might be -here--whether they'd be cruel and wicked or not, or whether they'd keep -me or not. Little girls most always have cruel uncles and aunties--you -can see that in the books." - -"You were awful stupid about that bit of it," said the maid, -emphatically. "I'm sure anybody could have told you about Mr. Dyce and -his sisters." - -"And then it was so stormy," proceeded Bud, quickly, in search of more -moving considerations. "I made a poem about that, too--I just dashed it -off; the first verse goes: - - "'The breaking waves dashed high - On a stern and rock-bound coast--' - -but I forget the rest, 'cept that - - "'--they come to wither there - Away from their childhood's land.' - The waves were mountains high, - And whirled over the deck, and--" - -"My goodness, you would get all wet!" said Kate, putting her hand on -Bud's shoulder to feel if she were dry yet. Honest tears were in her own -eyes at the thought of such distressing affairs. - -"The ship at last struck on a rock," proceeded Bud, "so the captain -lashed me--" - -"I would lash him, the villain!" cried the indignant maid. - -"I don't mean that; he tied me--that's lash in books--to the mast, and -then--and then--well, then we waited calmly for the end," said Bud, at -the last of her resources for ocean tragedy. - -Kate's tears were streaming down her cheeks at this conjured vision -of youth in dire distress. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! my poor wee hen!" she -sobbed. "I'm so sorry for you." - -"Bud! coo-ie! coo-ie!" came the voice of Aunt Ailie along the lobby, but -Bud was so entranced with the effect of her imaginings that she paid no -heed, and Kate's head was wrapped in her apron. - -"Don't cry, Kate; I wouldn't cry if I was you," said the child at last, -soothingly. "Maybe it's not true." - -"I'll greet if I like," insisted the maid. "Fancy you in that awful -shipwreck! It's enough to scare anybody from going anywhere. Oh, dear! -oh, dear!" and she wept more copiously than ever. - -"Don't cry," said Bud again. "It's silly to drizzle like that. Why, -great Queen of Sheba! I was only joshing you: it was as calm on that -ship as a milk sociable." - -Kate drew down the apron from her face and stared at her. Her meaning -was only half plain, but it was a relief to know that things had not -been quite so bad as she first depicted them. "A body's the better of a -bit greet, whiles," she said, philosophically, drying her eyes. - -"That's what I say," agreed Bud. "That's why I told you all that. Do you -know, child, I think you and I are going to be great friends." She said -this with the very tone and manner of Alison, whose words they were to -herself, and turned round hastily and embarrassed at a laugh behind her -to find her aunt had heard herself thus early imitated. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -IF Molyneux, the actor, was to blame for sending this child of ten on -her journey into Scotland without convoy, how much worse was his offence -that he sent no hint of her character to the house of Dyce? She was like -the carpet-bag George Jordon found at the inn door one day without a -name on it, and, saying, "There's nothing like thrift in a family," took -home immediately, to lament over for a week because he had not the key -to open it. There should have been a key to Lennox Brenton Dyce, but -Molyneux, a man of post-cards and curt and cryptic epistles generally, -never thought of that, so that it took some days for the folk she came -among to pick the lock. There was fun in the process, it cannot be -denied, but that was because the Dyces were the Dyces; had they been -many another folk she might have been a mystery for years, and in the -long-run spoiled completely. Her mother had been a thousand women in -her time--heroines good and evil, fairies, princesses, paupers, maidens, -mothers, shy and bold, plain or beautiful, young or old, as the play of -the week demanded--a play-actress, in a word. And now she was dead -and buried, the bright, white lights on her no more, the music and the -cheering done. But not all dead and buried, for some of her was in her -child. - -Bud was born a mimic. I tell you this at once, because so many -inconsistencies will be found in her I should otherwise look foolish to -present her portrait for a piece of veritable life. Not a mimic of voice -and manner only, but a mimic of people's minds, so that for long--until -the climax came that was to change her when she found herself--she was -the echo and reflection of the last person she spoke with. She borrowed -minds and gestures as later she borrowed Grandma Buntain's pelerine and -bonnet. She could be all men and all women except the plainly dull or -wicked--but only on each occasion for a little while; by-and-by she was -herself again. - -And so it was that for a day or two she played with the phrase and -accent of Wanton Wully Oliver, or startled her aunts with an unconscious -rendering of Kate's Highland accent, her "My stars!" and "Mercy me's!" -and "My wee hens!" - -The daft days (as we call New Year time) passed--the days of careless -merriment, that were but the start of Bud's daft days, that last with -all of us for years if we are lucky. The town was settling down; the -schools were opening on Han'sel Monday, and Bud was going--not to the -grammar-school after all, but to the Pigeons' Seminary. Have patience, -and by-and-by I will tell about the Pigeons. - -Bell had been appalled to find the child, at the age of ten, apparently -incredibly neglected in her education. - -"Of course you would be at some sort of school yonder in America?" she -had said at an early opportunity, not hoping for much, but ready to -learn of some hedge-row academy in spite of all the papers said of Yales -and Harvards and the like. - -"No, I never was at school; I was just going when father died," said -Bud, sitting on a sofa wrapped in a cloak of Ailie's, feeling extremely -tall and beautiful and old. - -"What! Do you sit there and tell me they did not send you to school?" -cried her aunt, so stunned that the child delighted in her power to -startle and amaze. "That's America for you! Ten years old and not the -length of your alphabets!--it's what one might expect from a heathen -land of niggers, and lynchers, and presidents. I was the best sewer and -speller in Miss Mushet's long before I was ten. My lassie, let me tell -you you have come to a country where you'll get your education! We would -make you take it at its best if we had to live on meal. Look at your -auntie Ailie--French and German, and a hand like copperplate; it's a -treat to see her at the old scrutoire, no way put-about, composing. -Just goes at it like lightning! I do declare if your uncle Dan was -done, Ailie could carry on the business, all except the aliments and -sequestrations. It beats all! Ten years old and not to know the ABC!" - -"Oh, but I do," said Bud, quickly. "I learned the alphabet off the -play-bills--the big G's first, because there's so many Greats and Grand? -and Gorgeouses in them. And then Mrs. Molyneux used to let me try to -read Jim's press notices. She read them first every morning sitting up -in bed at breakfast, and said, 'My! wasn't he a great man?' and then -she'd cry a little, 'cause he never got justice from the managers, for -they were all mean and jealous of him. Then she'd spray herself with the -peau d'espagne and eat a cracker. And the best papers there was in the -land said the part of the butler in the second act was well filled by -Mr. Jim Molyneux; or among others in a fine cast were J. Molyneux, Ralph -Devereux, and O. G. Tarpoll." - -"I don't know what you're talking about, my poor wee whitterick; but -it's all haivers," said Miss Bell. "Can you spell?" - -"If the words are not too big, or silly ones where it's 'ei' or 'ie' and -you have to guess," said Bud. - -"Spell cat." - -Bud stared at her incredulously. - -"Spell cat," repeated her aunt. - -"K-a-t-t," said Bud (oh, naughty Bud!). - -"Mercy!" cried Bell, with horrified hands in the air. "Off you pack -to-morrow to the seminary. I wouldn't wonder if you did not know a -single word of the Shorter Catechism. Perhaps they have not such a thing -in that awful heathen land you came from?" - -Bud could honestly say she had never heard of the Shorter Catechism. - -"My poor, neglected bairn," said her aunt, piteously, "you're sitting -there in the dark with no conviction of sin, and nothing bothering you, -and you might be dead to-morrow! Mind this, that 'Man's chief end is to -glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.' Say that." - -'"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever,'" -repeated Bud, obediently, rolling her r's and looking solemn like her -aunt. - -"Did you ever hear of Robert Bruce, him that watched the spiders?" - -Here, too, the naughty Bud protested ignorance. - -"He was the savior of his country," said Bell. "Mind that!" - -"Why, auntie, I thought it was George Washington," said Bud, surprised. -"I guess if you're looking for a little wee stupid, it's me." - -"We're talking about Scotland," said Miss Bell, severely. "He saved -Scotland. It was well worth while! Can you do your sums?" - -"I can _not_," said Bud, emphatically. "I hate them." Miss Bell said not -a word more; she was too distressed at such confessed benightedness; -but she went out of the parlor to search for Ailie. Bud forgot she -was beautiful and tall and old in Ailie's cloak; she was repeating to -herself "Man's chief end" with rolling r's, and firmly fixing in her -memory the fact that Robert Bruce, not George Washington, was the savior -of his country and watched spiders. - -Ailie was out, and so her sister found no ear for her bewailings over -the child's neglected education till Mr. Dyce came in humming the tune -of the day--"Sweet Afton"--to change his hat for one more becoming to -a sitting of the sheriff's court. He was searching for his good one -in what he was used to call "the piety press," for there was hung his -Sunday clothes, when Bell distressfully informed him that the child -could not so much as spell cat. - -"Nonsense! I don't believe it," said he. "That would be very unlike our -William." - -"It's true--I tried her myself!" said Bell. "She was never at a school; -isn't it just deplorable?" - -"H'm!" said Mr. Dyce, "it depends on the way you look at it, Bell." - -"She does not know a word of her catechism, nor the name of Robert -Bruce, and says she hates counting." - -"Hates counting!" repeated Mr. Dyce, wonderfully cheering up; "that's -hopeful; it reminds me of myself. Forbye its gey like Brother William. -His way of counting was 'one pound, ten shillings in my pocket, two -pounds that I'm owing some one, and ten shillings I get to-morrow-- -that's five pounds I have; what will I buy you now?' The worst of -arithmetic is that it leaves nothing to the imagination. Two and two's -four and you're done with it; there's no scope for either fun or fancy -as there might be if the two and two went courting in the dark and -swapped their partners by an accident." - -"I wish you would go in and speak to her," said Bell, distressed still, -"and tell her what a lot she has to learn." - -"What, me!" cried Uncle Dan; "excuse my grammar," and he laughed. "It's -an imprudent kind of mission for a man with all his knowledge in little -patches. I have a lot to learn, myself, Bell; it takes me all my time to -keep the folk I meet from finding out the fact." - -But he went in humming, Bell behind him, and found the child still -practising "Man's chief end," so engrossed in the exercise she never -heard him enter. He crept behind her, and put his hands over her eyes. - -"Guess who," said he, in a shrill falsetto. - -"It's Robert Bruce," said Bud, without moving. - -"No--cold--cold!--guess again," said her uncle, growling like Giant -Blunderbore. - -"I'll mention no names," said she, "but it's mighty like Uncle Dan." - -He stood in front of her and put on a serious face. "What's this I am -hearing, Miss Lennox," said he, "about a little girl who doesn't know a -lot of things nice little girls ought to know?" - -"'Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever,'" -repeated Bud, reflectively. "I've got that all right, but what does it -mean?" - -"What does it mean?" said Mr. Dyce, a bit taken aback. "You tell her, -Bell; what does it mean? I must not be late for the court." - -"You're far cleverer than I am," said Bell. "Tell her yourself." - -"It means," said Daniel Dyce, the lawyer, seating himself on the sofa -beside his niece, "that man in himself is a gey poor soul, no' worth -a pin, though he's apt to think the world was made for his personal -satisfaction. At the best he's but an instrument--a harp of a thousand -strings God bends to hear in His leisure. He made that harp--the heart -and mind of man--when He was in a happy hour. Strings hale and strings -broken, strings slack or tight, there are all kinds of them; the best we -can do's to be taut and trembling for the gladness of God who loves fine -music, and set the stars themselves to singing from the very day He -put them birling in the void. To glorify's to wonder and adore, and who -keeps the wondering, humble heart, the adoring eye, is to God pleasing -exceedingly. Sing, lassie, sing, sing, sing, inside ye, even if ye are -as timmer as a cask. God knows I have not much of a voice myself, but -I'm full of nobler airs than ever crossed my rusty thrapple. To be -grateful always, and glad things are no worse, is a good song to start -the morning." - -"Ah, but sin, Dan, sin!" said Bell, sighing, for she always feared her -own light-heartedness. "We may be too joco." - -"Say ye so?" he cried, turning to his sister with a flame upon his -visage. "By the heavens above us, no! Sin might have been eternal; each -abominable thought might have kept in our minds, constant day and -night from the moment that it bred there; the theft we did might keep -everlastingly our hand in our neighbor's kist as in a trap; the knife -we thrust with might have kept us thrusting forever and forever. But -no--God's good! sleep comes, and the clean morning, and the morning is -Christ, and every moment of time is a new opportunity to amend. It is -not sin that is eternal, it is righteousness and peace. Joco! We cannot -be too joco, having our inheritance." - -He stopped suddenly, warned by a glance of his sister's, and turned to -look in his niece's face to find bewilderment there. The mood that was -not often published by Dan Dyce left him in a flash, and he laughed and -put his arms round her. - -"I hope you're a lot wiser for my sermon, Bud," said he. "I can see you -have pins and needles worse than under the Reverend Mr. Frazer on the -Front. What's the American for haivers--for foolish speeches?" - -"Hot air," said Bud, promptly. - -"Good!" said Dan Dyce, rubbing his hands together. "What I'm saying may -seem just hot air to you, but it's meant. You do not know the Shorter -Catechism; never mind; there's a lot of it I'm afraid I do not know -myself; but the whole of it is in that first answer to 'Man's chief -end.' Reading and writing, and all the rest of it, are of less -importance, but I'll not deny they're gey and handy. You're no Dyce if -you don't master them easily enough." - -He kissed her and got gayly up and turned to go. "Now," said he, -"for the law, seeing we're done with the gospels. I'm a conveyancing -lawyer--though you'll not know what that means--so mind me in your -prayers." - -Bell went out into the lobby after him, leaving Bud in a curious frame -of mind, for "Man's chief end," and Bruce's spider, and the word "joco," -all tumbled about in her, demanding mastery. - -"Little help I got from you, Dan!" said Bell to her brother. "You never -even tried her with a multiplication table." - -"What's seven times nine?" he asked her, with his fingers on the handle -of the outer door, his eyes mockingly mischievous. - -She flushed and laughed, and pushed him on the shoulder. "Go away with -you!" said she. "Fine you ken I could never mind seven times!" - -"No Dyce ever could," said he--"excepting Ailie. Get her to put the -little creature through her tests. If she's not able to spell cat at ten -she'll be an astounding woman by the time she's twenty." - -The end of it was that Aunt Ailie, whenever she came in, upon Bell's -report went over the street to Rodger's shop and made a purchase. As -she hurried back with it, bareheaded, in a cool drizzle of rain that -jewelled her wonderful hair, she felt like a child herself again. The -banker-man saw her from his lodging as she flew across the street with -sparkling eyes and eager lips, the roses on her cheeks, and was sure, -foolish man! that she had been for a new novel or maybe a cosmetic, -since in Rodger's shop they sell books and balms and ointments. She made -the quiet street magnificent for a second--a poor wee second, and then, -for him, the sun went down. The tap of the knocker on the door she -closed behind her struck him on the heart. You may guess, good women, if -you like, that at the end of the book the banker-man is to marry Ailie, -but you'll be wrong; she was not thinking of the man at all at all--she -had more to do, she was hurrying to open the gate of gold to her little -niece. - -"I've brought you something wonderful," said she to the child--"better -than dolls, better than my cloak, better than everything; guess what it -is." - -Bud wrinkled her brows. "Ah, dear!" she sighed, "we may be too joco! And -I'm to sing, sing, sing, even if I'm as--timmer as a cask, and Robert -Bruce is the savior of his country." She marched across the room, -trailing Ailie's cloak with her, in an absurd caricature of Bell's brisk -manner. Yet not so much the actress engrossed in her performance, but -what she tried to get a glimpse of what her aunt concealed. - -"You need not try to see it," said Ailie, smiling, with the secret in -her breast. "You must honestly guess." - -"Better'n dolls and candies; oh, my!" said Bud. "I hope it's not the -Shorter Catechism," she concluded, looking so grave that her aunt -laughed. - -"It's not the Catechism," said Ailie; "try again. Oh, but you'll never -guess! It's a key." - -"A key?'' repeated Bud, plainly cast down. - -"A gold key," said her aunt. - -"What for?" asked Bud. - -Ailie sat herself down on the floor and drew the child upon her knees. -She had a way of doing that which made her look like a lass in her -teens; indeed, it was most pleasing if the banker-man could just have -seen it! "A gold key," she repeated, lovingly, in Bud's ear. "A key to -a garden--the loveliest garden, with flowers that last the whole year -round. You can pluck and pluck at them and they're never a single one -the less. Better than sweet-pease! But that's not all, there's a big -garden-party to be at it--" - -"My! I guess I'll put on my best glad rags," said Bud. "_And_ the hat -with pink." Then a fear came to her face. "Why, Aunt Ailie, you can't -have a garden-party this time of the year," and she looked at the -window down whose panes the rain was now streaming. - -"This garden-party goes on all the time," said Ailie. "Who cares about -the weather? Only very old people; not you and I. I'll introduce you to -a lot of nice people--Di Vernon, and--you don't happen to know a lady -called Di Vernon, do you, Bud?" - -"I wouldn't know her if she was handed to me on a plate with parsley -trimmings," said Bud, promptly. - -"--Di Vernon, then, and Effie Deans, and Little Nell, and the -Marchioness; and Richard Swivefler, and Tom Pinch, and the Cranford -folks, and Juliet Capulet--" - -"She must belong to one of the first families," said Bud. "I have a kind -of idea that I have heard of her." - -"And Mr. Falstaff--such a naughty man, but nice, too! And Rosalind." - -"Rosalind!" cried Bud. "You mean Rosalind in 'As You Like It?"' - -Ailie stared at her with astonishment. "You amazing child!" said she, -"who told you about 'As You Like It'?" - -"Nobody told me; I just read about her when Jim was learning the part of -Charles the Wrestler he played on six 'secutive nights in the Waldorf." - -"Read it!" exclaimed her aunt. "You mean he or Mrs. Molyneux read it to -you." - -"No, I read it myself," said Bud. - - "'Now my co-mates and brothers in exile, - Hath not old custom made this life more sweet - Than that of painted pomp? - Are not these woods - More free from peril than the envious court." - -She threw Aunt Ailie's cloak over one shoulder, put forth a ridiculously -little leg with an air of the playhouse, and made the gestures of Jim -Molyneux. - -"I thought you couldn't read," said Ailie. "You little fraud! You made -Aunt Bell think you couldn't spell cat." - -"Oh, Queen of Sheba! did she think I was in earnest?" cried Bud. "I was -just pretending. I'm apt to be pretending pretty often; why, Kate thinks -I make Works. I can read anything; I've read books that big it gave you -cramp. I s'pose you were only making believe about that garden, and you -haven't any key at all, but I don't mind; I'm not kicking." - -Ailie put her hand to her bosom and revealed the Twopenny she had -bought to be the key to the wonderful garden of letters--the slim -little gray-paper-covered primer in which she had learned her own first -lessons. She held it up between her finger and thumb that Bud might read -its title on the cover. Bud understood immediately and laughed, but not -quite at her ease for once. - -"I'm dre'ffle sorry, Aunt Ailie," she said. "It was wicked to pretend -just like that, and put you to a lot of trouble. Father wouldn't have -liked that." - -"Oh, I'm not kicking," said Ailie, borrowing her phrase to put her at -her ease again. "I'm too glad you're not so far behind as Aunt Bell -imagined. So you like books? Capital! And Shakespeare no less! What do -you like best, now?'" - -"Poetry," said Bud. "Particularly the bits I don't understand, but just -about almost. I can't bear to stop and dally with too easy poetry; once -I know it all plain and there's no more to it, I--I--I love to amble on. -I--why! I make poetry myself." - -"Really?" said Ailie, with twinkling eyes. - -"Sort of poetry," said Bud. "Not so good as 'As You Like It'--not -'nearly' so good, of course! I have loads of really, really poetry -inside me, but it sticks at the bends and then I get bits that fit, made -by somebody else, and wish I had been spry and said them first. Other -times I'm the real Winifred Wallace." - -"Winifred Wallace?" said Aunt Ailie, inquiringly. - -"Winifred Wallace," repeated Bud, composedly. "I'm her. It's my--it's my -poetry name. 'Bud Dyce' wouldn't be any use for the magazines; it's not -dinky enough." - -"Bless me, child, you don't tell me you write poetry for the magazines?" -said her astonished aunt. - -"No," said Bud, "but I'll be pretty liable to when I'm old enough to -wear specs. That's if I don't go on the stage." - -"On the stage!" exclaimed Ailie, full of wild alarm. - -"Yes," said the child. "Mrs. Molyneux said I was a born actress." - -"I wonder, I wonder," said Aunt Ailie, staring into vacancy. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -DANIEL DYCE had an office up the street at the windy corner facing the -Cross, with two clerks in it and a boy who docketed letters and ran -errands. Once upon a time there was a partner--Cleland & Dyce the firm -had been--but Cleland was a shy and melancholy man whose only hours of -confidence and gayety came to him after injudicious drams. 'Twas patent -to all how his habits seized him, but nobody mentioned it except in a -whisper, sometimes as a kind of little accident, for in everything else -he was the perfect gentleman, and here we never like to see the honest -gentry down. All men liked Colin Cleland, and many would share his -jovial hours who took their law business elsewhere than to Cleland -& Dyce. That is the way of the world, too; most men keep their -jovial-money in a different pocket from where they keep their cash. -The time came when it behooved Mr. Cleland to retire. Men who knew the -circumstances said Dan Dyce paid rather dear for that retirement, and -indeed it might be so in the stricter way of commerce, but the lawyer -was a Christian who did not hang up his conscience in the "piety press" -with his Sunday clothes. He gave his partner a good deal more than he -asked. - -"I hope you'll come in sometimes and see me whiles at night and join in -a glass of toddy," said Mr. Cleland. - -"I'll certainly come and see you," said Dan Dyce. And then he put -his arm affectionately through that of his old partner, and added, "I -would--I would ca' canny wi' the toddy, Colin," coating the pill in -sweet and kindly Scots. Thank God, we have two tongues in our place, and -can speak the bitter truth in terms that show humility and love, and not -the sense of righteousness, dictate. - -"Eh! What for?" said Mr. Cleland, his vanity at once in arms. - -Dan Dyce looked in his alarmed and wavering eyes a moment, and thought, -"What's the use? He knows himself, they always do!" - -"For fear--for fear of fat," he said, with a little laugh, tapping with -his finger on his quondam partner's widening waistcoat. "There are signs -of a prominent profile, Colin. If you go on as you're doing it will be a -dreadful expense for watch-guards." - -Colin Cleland at once became the easy-osey man again, and smiled. "Fat, -man! it's not fat," said he, clapping himself on the waistcoat, "it's -information. Do you know, Dan, for a second, there, I thought you -meant to be unkind, and it would be devilish unlike you to be unkind. -I thought you meant something else. The breath of vulgar suspicion has -mentioned drink." - -"It's a pity that!" said Mr. Dyce, "for a whole cask of cloves will not -disguise the breath of suspicion." It was five years now since Colin -Cleland retired among his toddy rummers, and if this were a fancy -story I would be telling you how he fell, and fell, and fell, but the -truth--it's almost lamentable--is that the old rogue throve on leisure -and ambrosial nights with men who were now quite ready to give the firm -of Daniel Dyce their business, seeing they had Colin Cleland all to -themselves and under observation. Trust estates and factorages from -all quarters of the county came now to the office at the windy corner. -A Christian lawyer with a sense of fun, unspotted by the world, and -yet with a name for winning causes, was what the shire had long been -wanting. And Daniel Dyce grew rich. "I'm making money so fast," he said -one day to his sisters (it was before Bud came), "that I wonder often -what poor souls are suffering for it." - -Said Bell, "It's a burden that's easy put up with. We'll be able now to -get a new pair of curtains for the back bedroom." - -"A pair of curtains!" said her brother, with a smile to Ailie. "Ay, a -score of pairs if they're needed, even if the vogue was Valenciennes. -Your notion of wealth, Bell, is Old Malabar's--'Twopence more, and up -goes the donkey!' Woman, I'm fair rolling in wealth." He said it with -a kind of exultation that brought to her face a look of fear and -disapproval. "Don't, Dan, don't," she cried--"don't brag of the world's -dross; it's not like you. 'He that hasteth to be rich shall not be -innocent,' says the Proverbs. You must be needing medicine. We should -have humble hearts. How many that were high have had a fall!" - -"Are you frightened God will hear me and me His bounty?" said the -brother, in a whisper. "I'm not bragging; I'm just telling you." - -"I hope you're not hoarding it," proceeded Miss Bell. "It's not -wiselike--" - -"Nor Dyce-like either," said Miss Ailie. - -"There's many a poor body in the town this winter that's needful." - -"I dare say," said Daniel Dyce, coldly. "'The poor we have always with -us.' The thing, they tell me, is decreed by Providence." - -"But Providence is not aye looking," said Bell. "If that's what you're -frightened for, I'll be your almoner." - -"It's their own blame, you may be sure, if they're poor. Improvidence -and--and drink. I'll warrant they have their glass of ale every -Saturday. What's ale? Is there any moral elevation in it? Its nutritive -quality, I believe, is less than the tenth part of a penny loaf." - -"Oh, but the poor creatures!" sighed Miss Bell. "Possibly," said Dan -Dyce, "but every man must look after himself; and as you say, many a -man well off has come down in the world. We should take no risks. I -had Black the baker at me yesterday for L20 in loan to tide over some -trouble with his flour merchant and pay an account to Miss Minto." - -"A decent man, with a wife and seven children," said Miss Bell. - -"Decent or not, he'll not be coming back borrowing from me in a hurry. I -set him off with a flea in his lug." - -"We're not needing curtains," said Miss Bell, hurriedly; "the pair we -have are fine." - -Dan finished his breakfast that day with a smile, flicked the crumbs off -his waistcoat, gave one uneasy glance at Ailie, and went off to business -humming "There is a Happy Land." - -"Oh, dear me, I'm afraid he's growing a perfect miser," moaned Bell, -when she heard the door close behind him. "He did not use to be like -that when he was younger and poorer. Money's like the toothache, a -commanding thing." - -Ailie smiled. "If you went about as much as I do, Bell," she said, "you -would not be misled by Dan's pretences. And as for Black, the baker, I -saw his wife in Miss Minto's yesterday buying boots for her children and -a bonnet for herself. She called me Miss Ailie, an honor I never got -from her in all my life before." - -"Do you think--do you think he gave Black the money?" said Bell, in a -pleasant excitation. - -"Of course he did. It's Dan's way to give it to some folk with a -pretence of reluctance, for if he did not growl they would never be off -his face! He's telling us about the lecture that accompanied it as a -solace to our femininity. Women, you know, are very bad lenders, and -dislike the practice in their husbands and brothers." - -"None of the women I know," protested Bell. "They're just as free-handed -as the men if they had it. I hope," she added, anxiously, "that Dan got -good security. Would it be a dear bonnet, now, that she was getting?" - -Ailie laughed--a ridiculous sort of sister this; she only laughed. - -Six times each lawful day Daniel Dyce went up and down the street -between his house and the office at the windy corner opposite the Cross, -the business day being divided by an interval of four hours to suit the -mails. The town folk liked to see him passing; he gave the street an -air of occupation and gayety, as if a trip had just come in with a brass -band banging at the latest air. Going or coming he was apt to be -humming a tune to himself as he went along with his hands in his outside -pockets, and it was an unusual day when he did not stop to look in at a -shop window or two on the way, though they never changed a feature once -a month. To the shops he honored thus it was almost as good as a big -turnover. Before him his dog went whirling and barking, a long alarm for -the clerks to stop their game of Catch-the-Ten and dip their pens. There -were few that passed him without some words of recognition. - -He was coming down from the office on the afternoon of the Hansel -Monday that started Bud in the Pigeons' Seminary when he met the nurse, -old Betty Baxter, with a basket. She put it down at her feet, and bobbed -a courtesy, a thing that nowadays you rarely see in Scotland. - -"Tuts! woman," he said to her, lifting the basket and putting it in -her hand. "Why need you bother with the like of that? You and your -courtesies! They're out of date, Miss Baxter, out of date, like the -decent men that deserved them long ago, before my time." - -"No, they're not out of date, Mr. Dyce," said she, "I'll aye be minding -you about my mother; you'll be paid back some day." - -"Tuts!" said he again, impatient. "You're an awful blether: how's your -patient, Duncan Gill?" - -"As dour as the devil, sir," said the nurse. "Still hanging on." - -"Poor man! poor man!" said Mr. Dyce. "He'll just have to put his trust -in God." - -"Oh, he's no' so far through as all that," said Betty Baxter. "He can -still sit up and take his drop of porridge. They're telling me you have -got a wonderful niece, Mr. Dyce, all the way from America. What a mercy -for her! But I have not set eyes on her yet. I'm so busy that I could -not stand in the close like the others, watching: what is she like?" - -"Just like Jean Macrae," said Mr. Dyce, preparing to move on. - -"And what was Jean Macrae like?" - -"Oh, just like other folk," said Mr. Dyce, and passed on chuckling, to -run almost into the arms of Captain Consequence. - -"Have you heard the latest?" said Captain Consequence, putting his -kid-gloved hand on the shoulder of the lawyer, who felt it like a lump -of ice, for he did not greatly like the man, the smell of whose cigars, -he said, before he knew they came from the Pilgrim widows, proved that -he rose from the ranks. - -"No, Captain Brodie," he said, coldly. "Who's the rogue or the fool -this time?" but the captain was too stupid to perceive it. He stared -perplexedly. - -"I hear," said he, "the doctor's in a difficulty." - -"Is he--is he?" said Mr. Dyce. "That's a chance for his friends to stand -by him." - -"Let him take it!" said Captain Consequence, puffing. "Did he not say to -me once yonder, 'God knows how you're living.'" - -"It must be God alone, for all the rest of us are wondering," said Mr. -Dyce, and left the man to put it in his pipe and smoke it. - -Along the street came the two Miss Duffs, who kept the dame school, and -he saw a hesitation in their manner when they realized a meeting was -inevitable. If they had been folk that owed him anything he would not -have wondered, from their manner, to see them tuck up their skirts and -scurry down the lane. Twins they were--a tiny couple, scarcely young, -dressed always in a douce long-lasting brown, something in their walk -and color that made them look like pigeon hens, and long ago conferred -on them that name in Daniel Dyce's dwelling. They met him in front of -his own door, and seemed inclined to pass in a trepidation. - -He took off his hat to them and stood, full of curiosity about Lennox. - -"What a lovely winter day!" said Miss Jean, with an air of supplication, -as if her very life depended on his agreement. - -"Isn't it _perfectly_ exquisite!" said Miss Amelia, who usually picked -up the bald details of her sister's conversation and passed them on -embroidered with a bit of style. - -"It's not bad," said Mr. Dyce, blinking at them, wondering what ailed -the dears to-day. They were looking uneasily around them for some way -of escape; he could almost hear the thump of their hearts, he noted the -stress of their breathing. Miss Jean's eyes fastened on the tree-tops -over the banker's garden-wall; he felt that in a moment she would spread -out her wings and fly. "You have opened the school again," he said, -simply. - -"We started again to-day," cooed Miss Jean. - -"Yes, we resumed to-day," said Miss Amelia. "The common round, the daily -task. And, oh! Mr. Dyce--" - -She stopped suddenly at the pressure of her sister's elbow on her own, -and lowered her eyes, that had for a second shown an appalling area of -white. It was plain they were going to fly. Mr. Dyce felt inclined to -cry "Pease, pease!" and keep them a little longer. - -"You have my niece with you to-day?" he remarked. "What do you think of -her?" - -A look of terror exchanged between them escaped his observation. - -"She's--she's a wonderful child," said Miss Jean, nervously twisting the -strings of a hand-bag. - -"A singularly interesting and--and unexpected creature," said Miss -Amelia. - -"Fairly bright, eh?" said Mr. Dyce. - -"Oh, bright!" repeated Miss Jean. "Bright is not the word for it--is it, -Amelia?" - -"I would rather say brilliant," said Amelia, coughing, and plucking -a handkerchief out of her pocket to inhale its perfume and avert a -threatening swound. "I hope--we both hope, Mr. Dyce, she will be spared -to grow up a credit to you. One never knows?" - -"That's it," agreed Mr. Dyce, cheerfully. "Some girls grow up and become -credits to their parents and guardians, others become reciters and spoil -many a jolly party with 'The Women of Mumbles Head' or 'Coffee was not -strong.'" - -"I hope not," said Miss Jean, hardly understanding: the painful -possibility seemed to be too much for Miss Amelia; she said nothing, but -fixed her eyes on the distant tree-tops and gave a little flap of the -wings of her Inverness cape. - -"Pease, pease!" murmured Mr. Dyce, unconsciously, anxious to hold them -longer and talk about his niece. - -"I beg pardon!" exclaimed Miss Jean, and the lawyer got very red. - -"I hope at least you'll like Bud," he said. "She's odd, but--but--but--" -he paused for a word. - -"--sincere," suggested Miss Jean. - -"Yes, I would say sincere--or perhaps outspoken would be better," said -Miss Amelia. - -"So clever too," added Miss Jean. "Pretematurally!" cooed Miss Amelia. - -"Such a delightful accent," said Miss Jean. - -"Like linked sweetness long drawn out," quoted Miss Amelia. - -"But--" hesitated Miss Jean. - -"Still--" more hesitatingly said her sister, and then there was a long -pause. - -"Oh, to the mischief!" said Mr. Dyce to himself, then took off his hat -again, said, "Good-afternoon," and turned to his door. - -He was met by Ailie in the lobby; she had seen him from a window -speaking to the Duffs. "What were they saying to you?" she asked, with -more curiosity in her manner than was customary. - -"Nothing at all," said Mr. Dyce. "They just stood and cooed. I'm not -sure that a doo-cot is the best place to bring up an eagle in. How did -Bud get on with them at school to-day?" - -"So far as I can make out, she did not get on at all; she seems to have -demoralized the school, and driven the Misses Duff into hysterics, and -she left of her own accord and came home an hour before closing-time. -And--and she's not going back!" - -Mr. Dyce stood a moment in amazement, then rubbed his hands gleefully. -"I'm glad to hear it," said he. "The poor birdies between them could -not summon up courage to tell me what was wrong. I'm sorry for them; if -she's not going back, we'll send them down a present." - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THAT the child should have gone to the dame school at all was due to her -Auntie Bell. From the first Miss Ailie had been dubious of the seminary, -but Bell was terribly domineering; in fact, was neither to hold nor -bind, and the doo-cot it bode to be. A product herself of the old -dame school in the spacious days of Barbara Mushet, whose pupils in -white-seam sewing and Italian hand were nowadays married to the best, -and notable as housewives, she deemed it still the only avenue to -the character and skill that keep those queer folk, men, when they're -married, by their own fire-ends. As for Daniel Dyce, he was, I fear, -indifferent how Bud came by her schooling, having a sort of philosophy -that the gate of gifts is closed on us the day we're bom, and that the -important parts of the curriculum, good or bad, are picked up like a -Scots or Hielan' accent, someway in the home. - -So Ailie had gone reluctant to the Misses Duff and told them that on the -morrow the child would start in their academy. They currookity cooed at -the prospect, put past their crocheting, brought out their celebrated -silver spoons, and made of the afternoon tea a banquet with the aid of -a seed-cake hurriedly brought from P. & A. MacGlashan's. Their home was -like a stall in a bazaar and smelt of turpentine. Ailie, who loved -wide spaces, sat cramped between a laden what-not and a white-enamelled -spinning-wheel, the feathers of her hat colliding with a fretwork -bracket on the wall behind her chair, and thinking not unkindly of the -creatures, wished that she could give them a good shaking. Oh! they were -so prim, pernickety, and hopelessly in all things wrong! She was not -very large herself, for stature, but in their company she felt gigantic. -And oddly there rose in her, too, a sense of gladness that she was of -a newer kind of women than those gentle slaves, prisoned in their -primness, manacled by stupid old conceits. She was glad she was free, -that her happy hours were not so wasted in futilities, that she saw -farther, that she knew no social fears, that custom had not crushed her -soul, and yet she someway liked and pitied them. - -"You'll find her somewhat odd," she explained, as she nibbled the -seed-cake, with a silly little doily of Miss Jean's contrivance on her -knee, and the doves fluttering round her as timid of settling down -as though they had actual feathers and she were a cat. "She has got a -remarkably quick intelligence; she is quite unconventional--quite unlike -other children in many respects, and it may be difficult at first to -manage her." - -"Dear me!" said Miss Jean. "What a pity she should be so odd! I suppose -it's the American system; but perhaps she will improve." - -"Oh, it's nothing alarming," explained Miss Ailie, recovering the doily -from the floor to which it had slid from her knee, and replacing it with -a wicked little shake. "If she didn't speak much you would never guess -from her appearance that she knew any more than--than most of us. Her -mother, I feel sure, was something of a genius--at least it never came -from the Dyce side; we were all plain folk, not exactly fools, but still -not odd enough to have the dogs bite us, or our neighbors cross to the -other side of the street when they saw us coming. She died two years -ago, and when William--when my brother died, Lennox was staying with -professional friends of himself and his wife, who have been good enough -to let us have her, much against their natural inclination." - -"The dear!" said Miss Jean, enraptured. - -"Quite a sweet romance!" cooed Miss Amelia, languishing. - -"You may be sure we will do all we can for her," continued Miss Jean, -pecking with unconscious fingers at the crumbs on her visitor's lap, -till Ailie could scarcely keep from smiling. - -"She will soon feel quite at home among us in our little school," said -Miss Amelia. "No doubt she'll be shy at first--" - -"Quite the contrary!" Ailie assured them, with a little mischievous -inward glee, to think how likely Bud was to astonish them by other -qualities than shyness. "It seems that in America children are brought -up on wholly different lines from children here; you'll find a curious -fearless independence in her." - -The twins held up their hands in amazement, "tcht-tcht-tchting" -simultaneously. "_What_ a pity!" said Miss Jean, as if it were a -physical affliction. - -"But no doubt by carefulness and training it can be eradicated," said -Miss Amelia, determined to encourage hope. - -At that Miss Ailie lost her patience. She rose to go, with a start that -sent the doves more widely fluttering than ever in their restless little -parlor, so crowded out of all comfort by its fretful toys. - -"I don't think you should trouble much about the eradication," she said, -with some of her brother's manner at the bar. "Individuality is not -painful to the possessor like toothache, so it's a pity to eradicate it -or kill the nerve." - -The words were out before she could prevent them; she bit her lips, and -blushed in her vexation to have said them, but luckily the Pigeons in -their agitation were not observant. - -"Like all the Dyces, a little daft!" was what they said of her when she -was gone, and they were very different women then, as they put on their -aprons, rolled up the silver spoons in tissue-paper and put them in a -stocking of Amelia's, before they started to their crochet work again. - -It was a bright, expectant, happy bairn that set out next day for the -school. No more momentous could have seemed her start for Scotland -across the wide Atlantic; her aunties, looking after her going down the -street alone, so confident and sturdily, rued their own arrangement, -and envied the Misses Duff that were to be blessed all day with her -companionship. To Bell it seemed as if the wean were walking out of -their lives on that broad road that leads our bairns to other knowledge -than ours, to other dwellings, to the stranger's heart. Once the child -turned at the corner of the church and waved her hand; Miss Ailie took -it bravely, but oh, Miss Bell!--Miss Bell!--she flew to the kitchen and -stormed at Kate as she hung out at the window, an observer too. - -Three-and-twenty scholars were there in the doo-cot of the -Duffs--sixteen of them girls and the remainder boys, but not boys -enough as yet to be in the grammar-school. Miss Jean came out and rang -a tea-bell, and Bud was borne in on the tide of youth that was still all -strange to her. The twins stood side by side behind a desk; noisily the -children accustomed found their seats, but Bud walked up to the teachers -and held out her hand. - -"Good-morning; I'm Lennox Dyce," she said, before they could get over -their astonishment at an introduction so unusual. Her voice, calm and -clear, sounded to the backmost seat and sent the children tittering. - -"Silence!" cried Miss Jean, reddening with a glance at the delinquents, -as she dubiously took the proffered hand. - -"Rather a nice little school," said Bud, "but a little stuffy. Wants -air some, don't it? What's the name of the sweet little boy in the -Fauntleroy suit? It looks as if it would be apt to be Percy." - -She was standing between the twins, facing the scholars; she surveyed -all with the look of his Majesty's Inspector. - -"Hush-h-h," murmured Miss Amelia, Miss Jean being speechless. "You -will sit here," and she nervously indicated a place in the front bench. -"By-and-by, dear, we will see what you can do." - -Bud took her place composedly, and rose with the rest to join in the -Lord's Prayer. The others mumbled it; for her it was a treat to have to -say it there for the first time in her life in public. Into the words -she put interest and appeal; for the first time the doo-cot heard that -supplication endowed with its appropriate dignity. And then the work -of the day began. The school lay in the way of the main traffic of the -little town: they could hear each passing wheel and footstep, the sweet -"chink, chink" from the smithy, whence came the smell of a sheep's head -singeing. Sea-gulls and rooks bickered and swore in the gutters of the -street; from fields behind came in a ploughman's whistle as he drove -his team, slicing green seas of fallow as a vessel cuts the green, -green wave. Four-and-twenty children, four-and-twenty souls, fathers and -mothers of the future race, all outwardly much alike with eyes, noses, -hands, and ears in the same position, how could the poor Misses Duff -know what was what in the stuff they handled? Luckily for their peace of -mind, it never occurred to them that between child and child there was -much odds. Some had blue pinafores and some white; some were freckled -and some had warts and were wild, and these were the banker's boys. God -only knew the other variations. 'Twas the duty of the twins to bring -them all in mind alike to the one plain level. - -It was lucky that the lessons of that day began with the Shorter -Catechism, for it kept the ignorance of Lennox Dyce a little while in -hiding. She heard with amazement of Effectual Calling and Justification -and the reasons annexed to the fifth commandment as stammeringly and -lifelessly chanted by the others; but when her turn came, and Miss Jean, -to test her, asked her simply "Man's chief end," she answered, boldly: - -"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." - -"Very good! _very_ good, indeed!" said the twin encouragingly. She was -passing on to the next pupil, when Bud burst out with her own particular -reason annexed, borrowed from the rapturous explanation of her uncle. - -"Man is a harp," she said, as solemnly as he had said it--"a har-r-rp -with a thousand strings; and we must sing, sing, sing, even if we're -timmer as a cask, and be grateful always, and glad in the mornings with -things." - -If the whistling ploughman and his team had burst into the school-room -it would have been no greater marvel, brought no more alarm to the -breasts of the little teachers. They looked at her as if she had been a -witch. The other pupils stared, with open mouths. - -"What's that you say, my dear?" said Miss Amelia. "Did you learn that in -America?" - -"No," said Bud, "I just found it out from Uncle Dan." - -"Silence!" cried Miss Jean, for now the class was tittering again. -She went with her sister behind the black-board, and nervously they -communed. Bud smiled benignly on her fellows. - -Just as disconcerting was her performance in geography. Had they tested -her in her knowledge of the United States she might have come out -triumphantly commonplace; but unfortunately they chose to ask her of -Scotland, and there her latest teacher had been Kate. - -"What are the chief towns in Scotland?" asked Miss Jean. - -"Oban, and Glasgow, and Toraoway," replied Bud, with a touch of Highland -accent; and, tired of sitting so long in one place, calmly rose and -removed herself to a seat beside the Fauntleroy boy, who was greatly put -about at such a preference. - -"You mustn't move about like that, Lennox," explained Miss Amelia, -taking her back. "It's not allowed." - -"But I was all pins and needles," said Bud, frankly, "and I wanted to -speak to Percy." - -"My dear child, his name's not Percy, and there's no speaking in -school," exclaimed the distressed Miss Amelia. - -"No speaking! Why, you're speaking all the time," said the child. "It -ain't--isn't fair. Can't I just get speaking a wee teeny bit to that -nice girl over there?" - -The twins looked at each other in horror: the child was a thousand times -more difficult than the worst her aunt had led them to expect. A sudden -unpleasant impression that their familiar pupils seemed like wooden -models beside her, came to them both. But they were alarmed to see that -the wooden models were forgetting their correct deportment under the -demoralizing influence of the young invader. - -Once more they dived behind the black-board and communed. - -There were many such instances during the day. Bud, used for all her -thinking years to asking explanations of what she did not understand, -never hesitated to interrogate her teachers, who seemed to her to be -merely women, like her mother, and Mrs. Molyneux, and Auntie Ailie, only -a little wilted and severe, grotesque in some degree because of their -funny affected manner, and the crochet that never was out of their hands -in oral exercises. She went further, she contradicted them twice, not -rudely, but as one might contradict her equals. - -"You talk to her," said Miss Jean behind the blackboard where they had -taken refuge again. "I declare I'll take a fit if this goes on! Did you -ever hear of such a creature?" - -Miss Amelia almost cried. All her fixed ideas of children were shattered -at a blow. Here was one who did not in the least degree fit in with the -scheme of treatment in the doo-cot. But she went forward with a look of -great severity. - -"Of course, coming from America and all that, and never having been at -school before, you don't know," she said, "but I must tell you that you -are not behaving nicely--not like a nice little girl at all, Lennox. -Nice little girls in school in this country listen, and never say -anything unless they're asked. They are respectful to their teachers, -and never ask questions, and certainly never contradict them, and--" - -"But, please, Miss Duff, I wasn't contradicting," explained Bud, very -soberly, "and when respect is called for, I'm there with the goods. You -said honor was spelled with a 'u,' and I guess you just made a mistake, -same as I might make myself, for there ain't no 'u' in honor, at least -in America." - -"I--I--I never made a mistake in all my life," said Miss Amelia, -gasping. - -"Oh, Laura!" was all that Bud replied, but in such a tone, and with eyes -so widely opened, it set half of the other pupils tittering. - -"What do you mean by 'Oh, Laura?'" asked Miss Jean. "Who is Laura?" - -"You can search me," replied Bud, composedly. "Jim often said 'Oh, -Laura!' when he got a start." - -"It's not a nice thing to say," said Miss Jean. "It's not at all -ladylike. It's just a sort of profane language, and profane language is -an 'abomination unto the Lord.'" - -"But it was so like Jim," said Bud, giggling with recollection. "If -it's slang I'll stop it--at least I'll try to stop it. I'm bound to be a -well-off English undefied, you know; poppa--father fixed that." - -The school was demoralized without a doubt, for now the twins were -standing nervously before Bud and put on equal terms with her in spite -of themselves, and the class was openly interested and amused--more -interested and amused than it had ever been at anything that had ever -happened in the doo-cot before. Miss Amelia was the first to comprehend -how far she and her sister had surrendered their citadel of authority to -the little foreigner's attack. "Order!" she exclaimed. "We will now take -up poetry and reading." Bud cheered up wonderfully at the thought of -poetry and reading, but alas! her delight was short-lived, for the -reading-book put into her hand was but a little further on than Auntie -Ailie's Twopenny. When her turn came to read "My sister Ella has a cat -called Tabby. She is black, and has a pretty white breast. She has long -whiskers and a bushy white tail," she read with a tone of amusement that -exasperated the twins, though they could not explain to themselves why. -What completed Bud's rebellion, however, was the poetry. "Meddlesome -Matty" was a kind of poetry she had skipped over in Chicago, plunging -straightway into the glories of the play-bills and Shakespeare, and when -she had read that: - - "One ugly trick has often spoiled - The sweetest and the best; - Matilda, though a pleasant child, - One ugly trick possessed"-- - -she laughed outright. - -"I can't help it, Miss Duff," she said, when the twins showed their -distress. "It looks like poetry, sure enough, for it's got the jaggy -edges, but it doesn't make any zip inside me same as poetry does. It -wants biff." - -"What's 'zip' and 'biff'?" asked Miss Amelia. - -"It's--it's a kind of tickle in your mind," said Bud. "I'm so tired," -she continued, rising in her seat, "I guess I'll head for home now." And -before the twins had recovered from their dumfounderment she was in the -porch putting on her cloak and hood. - -"Just let her go," said Miss Jean to her sister. "If she stays any -longer I shall certainly have a swoon; I feel quite weak." - -And so Bud marched out quite cheerfully, and reached home an hour before -she was due. - -Kate met her at the door. "My stars! are you home already?" she -exclaimed, with a look at the town clock. "You must be smart at your -schooling when they let you out of the cemetery so soon." - -"It ain't a cemetery at all," said Bud, standing unconcernedly in the -lobby; "it's just a kindergarten." - -Aunt Ailie bore down on her to overwhelm her in caresses. "What are you -home for already, Bud?" she asked. "It's not time yet, is it?" - -"No," said Bud, "but I just couldn't stay any longer. I'd as lief not go -back there. The ladies don't love me. They're Sunday sort of ladies, and -give me pins and needles. They smile and smile, same's it was done with -a glove-stretcher, and don't love me. They said I was using profound -language, and--and they don't love me. Not the way mother and Mrs. -Molyneux and you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan and Kate and Footles -does. They made goo-goo eyes at me when I said the least thing. They had -all those poor kiddies up on the floor doing their little bits, and they -made me read kindergarten poetry--that was the limit! So I just upped -and walked." - -The two aunts and Kate stood round her for a moment baffled. - -"What's to be done now?" said Aunt Ailie. - -"Tuts!" said Aunt Bell, "give the wean a drink of milk and some bread -and butter." - -And so ended Bud's only term in a dame school. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IT was a saying of Daniel Dyce's that all the world is under one's own -waistcoat. We have a way of spaeing fortunes in the North, when young, -in which we count the waistcoat buttons from top to bottom, and say: - - "Tinker, - Tailor, - Soldier, - Sailor, - Rich man, - Poor man, - Prodigal, - Or Thief?" - -Whichever name falls upon the last button tells what is your destiny, -and after the county corps has been round our way recruiting, I see -our school-boys with all their waistcoat buttons but three at the -top amissing. Dan Dyce had a different formula: he said, "Luckiness, -Leisure, Ill or Well, Good World, Bad World, Heaven or Hell?" - -"Not Heaven, Dan!" said Bell. "The other place I'll admit, for whiles -I'm in a furious temper over some trifle;" to which he would answer, -"Woman! the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." - -So, I think sometimes, all that's worth while in the world is in this -little burgh, except a string-quartette and a place called Florence I -have long been wishing to see if ever I have the money. In this small -town is every week as much of tragedy and comedy and farce as would make -a complete novel full of laughter and tears, that would sell in a jiffy. -I have started, myself, a score of them--all the essential inspiration -got from plain folk passing my window, or from hearing a sentence -dropped among women gossiping round a well. Many a winter night I come -in with a fine catch of tales picked up in the by-going, as we say, -and light the candles in a hurry, and make a gallant dash at "Captain -Consequence. Chapter I." or "A Wild Inheritance. Part I. The Astounding -Mary." Only the lavishness of the material hampers me: when I'm at -"Captain Consequence" (which would be a splendid sombre story of an ill -life, if I ever got beyond Chapter I. and the old scamp's fondness for -his mother), my wife runs in with something warm to drink, and tells me -Jonathan Campbell's goat has broken into the minister's garden, and then -I'm off the key for villany; there's a shilling book in Jonathan's goat -herself. - -But this time I'm determined to stick by the fortunes of the Dyce -family, now that I have got myself inside their door. I hope we are -friends of that household, dearer to me than the dwellings of kings (not -that I have cognizance of many). I hope that no matter how often or how -early we rap at the brass knocker, or how timidly, Kate will come, and -in one breath say, "What is't? Come in!" We may hear, when we're in, -people passing in the street, and the wild geese call--wild geese, wild -geese! this time I will not follow where you tempt to where are only -silence and dream--the autumn and the summer days may cry us out to -garden and wood, but if I can manage it I will lock the door on the -inside, and shut us snugly in with Daniel Dyce and his household, and it -will be well with us then. Yes, yes, it will be well with us then. - -The wild-goose cry, heard in the nights, beyond her comprehension, was -all that Bud Dyce found foreign in that home. All else was natural and -familiar and friendly, for all else she knew was love. But she feared -at first the "honk, honk" of the lone wild things that burdened her with -wonder and awe. Lying in her attic bower at night, they seemed to her -like sore mistaken wanderers, wind-driven, lost; and so they are, I -know. Hans Andersen and Grimm for her had given to their kind a forlorn -and fearsome meaning. But Kate MacNeill had helped, to some degree, -these childish apprehensions. - -The Highland maid had brought from Colonsay a flesh that crept in -darkness, a brain with a fantastic maggot in it; she declared to -goodness, and to Bud sometimes, that she had no life of it with ghosts -in her small back room. But Bud was not to let on to her aunties. Forbye -it was only for Kate they came, the ghosts; did Bud not hear them last -night? Geese! No, not geese, Kate knew different, and if the thing -lasted much longer she would stay no more in this town; she would stay -nowhere, she would just go back to Colonsay. Not that Colonsay was -better; there were often ghosts in Colonsay--in the winter-time, and -then it behooved you to run like the mischief, or have a fine strong -lad with you for your convoy. If there were no ghosts in America it -was because it cost too much to go there on the steamers. Harken to -yon--"Honk, honk!"--did ever you hear the like of it? Who with their -wits about them in weather like that would like to be a ghost? And loud -above the wind that rocked the burgh in the cradle of the hills, loud -above the beating rain, the creak of doors and rap of shutters in that -old house, Bud and Kate together in the kitchen heard again the "honk, -honk!" of the geese. Then it was for the child that she missed the -mighty certainty of Chicago, that Scotland somehow to her mind seemed an -old unhappy place, in the night of which went passing Duncan, murdered -in his sleep, and David Rizzio with the daggers in his breast, and Helen -of Kirk-connel Lee. The nights but rarely brought any fear for her in -spite of poor Kate's ghosts, since the warmth and light and love of the -household filled every corner of lobby and stair, and went to bed with -her. When she had said her prayer the geese might cry, the timbers of -the old house crack, Bud was lapped in the love of God and man, and -tranquil. But the mornings dauntened her often when she wakened to the -sound of the six-o'clock bell. She would feel, when it ceased, as if all -virtue were out of last night's love and prayer. Then all Scotland and -its curious scraps of history as she had picked it up weighed on her -spirit for a time; the house was dead and empty; not ghost nor goose -made her eerie, but mankind's old inexplicable alarms. How deep and from -what distant shores comes childhood's wild surmise! There was nothing -to harm her, she knew, but the strangeness of the dawn and a craving for -life made her at these times the awakener of the other dwellers in the -house of Dyce. - -She would get out of bed and go next door to the room of Ailie, and -creep in bed beside her to kiss her for a little from her dreams. To the -aunt these morning visitations were precious: she would take the bairn -to her bosom and fall asleep with sighs of content, the immaculate -mother. Bud herself could not sleep then for watching the revelation of -her lovely auntie in the dawn--the cloud on the pillow, that turned to -masses of hazel hair, the cheeks and lips that seemed to redden like -flowers as the day dawned, the nook of her bosom, the pulse of her brow. - -Other mornings Wanton Wully's bell would send her in to Bell, who would -give her the warm hollow of her own place in the blankets, while she -herself got up to dress briskly for the day's affairs. "Just you lie -down there, pet, and sleepy-baw," she would say, tying her coats with -trim tight knots. "You will not grow up a fine, tall, strong girl like -your Auntie Ailie if you do not take your sleep when you can get it. The -morning is only for done old wives like me that have things to do and -don't grudge doing them." - -She would chatter away to Bud as she dressed, a garrulous auntie this, -two things always for her text--the pride of Scotland, and the virtue of -duty done. A body, she would say, was sometimes liable to weary of the -same things to be done each day, the same tasks even-on, fires and food -and cleansing, though the mind might dwell on great deeds desirable to -be accomplished, but pleasure never came till the thing was done that -was the first to hand, even if it was only darning a stocking. What was -Bud going to be when she grew up? Bud guessed she wasn't going to be -anything but just a lady. Ah, yes, but even ladies had to do something -wise-like; there was Ailie--to go no farther--who could have managed -a business though her darning was but lumpy. Even for a lady there was -nothing nobler than the making of her own bed; besides the doctors said -it was remarkably efficacious for the figure. - -Bud, snug in her auntie's blankets, only her nose and her bright bead -eyes showing in the light of the twirly wooden candlestick, guessed Mrs. -Molyneux was the quickest woman to get through work ever she saw: why! -she just waved it to one side and went out to shop or lunch with Jim. - -A look of pity for Mrs. Molyneux, the misguided, would come to Bell's -face, but for those folk in America she never had a word of criticism in -the presence of the child. All she could say was America was different. -America was not Scotland. And Scotland was not England, though in many -places they called Scotch things English. - -Jim used to say, speaking of father, that a Scotsman was a kind of -superior Englishman. - -Bell wished to goodness she could see the man--he must have been a -clever one! - -Other mornings again would the child softly open her uncle's door and he -would get a terrible fright, crying "Robbers! but you'll get nothing. I -have my watch in my boots, and my money in my mouth." - -She would creep beside him, and in these early hours began her -education. She was learning Ailie's calm and curiosity and ambition, she -was learning Bell's ideas of duty and the ancient glory of her adopted -land; from her uncle she was learning many things, of which the least -that seemed useful at the time was the Lord's Prayer in Latin. _Pater -noster qui es in coelis_--that and a few hundred of Trayner's Latin -maxims was nearly all of the classic tongue that survived with the -lawyer from student days. It was just as good and effective a prayer in -English, he admitted, but somehow, whiles, the language was so old it -brought you into closer grips with the original. Some mornings she would -hum to him coon songs heard in her former home; and if he was in trim he -himself would sing some psalm to the tune of Coleshill, French, Bangor, -or Tor-wood. His favorite was Torwood; it mourned so--mourned so! Or at -other times a song like "Mary Morison." - -"What are you bumming away at up there the pair of you?" Bell would cry, -coming to the stair-foot. "If you sing before breakfast, you'll greet -before night!" - -"Don't she like singing in the morning?" Bud asked, nestling beside him, -and he laughed. - -"It's an old freit--an old superstition," said he, "that it's unlucky to -begin the day too blithely. It must have been a doctor that started it, -but you would wonder at the number of good and douce Scots folk, plain -bodies like ourselves, that have the notion in their mind from infancy, -and never venture a cheep or chirrup before the day's well aired." - -"My stars, ain't she Scotch, Auntie Bell!" said Bud. "So was father. -He would sing any time; he would sing if it broke a tooth; but he was -pretty Scotch other ways. Once he wore a pair of kilts to a Cale--to a -Caledonian club." - -"I don't keep a kilt myself," said her uncle. "The thing's not strictly -necessary unless you're English and have a Hielan' shooting." - -"Auntie Bell is the genuine Scotch stuff, I guess!" - -"There's no concealing the fact that she is," her uncle admitted. "She's -so Scotch that I am afraid she's apt to think of God as a countryman of -her own." And there were the hours that Ailie gave with delight to Bud's -more orthodox tuition. The back room that was called Dan's study, -because he sometimes took a nap there after dinner, became a schoolroom. -There was a Mercator's map of the world on the wall, and another of -Europe, that of themselves gave the place the right academy aspect. With -imagination, a map, and _The Golden Treasury_ you might have as good as -a college education, according to Ailie. They went long voyages together -on Mercator; saw marvellous places; shivered at the poles or languished -4 in torrid plains, sometimes before Kate could ring the bell for -breakfast. There seemed no spot in the world that this clever auntie had -not some knowledge of. How eagerly they crossed continents, how -ingeniously they planned routes! For the lengths of rivers, the heights -of mountains, the values of exports, and all the trivial passing facts -that mar the great game of geography for many childish minds, they had -small consideration; what they gathered in their travels were sounds, -colors, scenes, weather, and the look of races. What adventures they -had! as when, pursued by elephants and tigers, they sped in a flash from -Bengal to the Isle of Venice, and saw the green slime of the sea on her -steeping palaces. Yes, the world is all for the folk of imagination. -'Love maps and you will never be too old or too poor to travel,' was -Ailie's motto. She found a hero or a heroine for every spot upon -Mercator, and nourished so the child in noble admirations. - -You might think it would always be the same pupil and the same teacher, -but no, they sometimes changed places. If Ailie taught Bud her own -love for the lyrics that are the best work of men in their hours of -exaltation, Bud sent Ailie back to her Shakespeare, and sweet were the -days they spent in Arden or Prospero's Isle. - -It was well with them then; it was well with the woman and the child, -and they were happy. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -BUT the Dyces never really knew how great and serious was the charge -bequeathed to them in their brother William's daughter till they saw it -all one night in March in the light of a dozen penny candles. - -Lennox had come from a world that's lit by electricity, and for weeks -she was sustained in wonder and amusement by the paraffine lamps of -Daniel Dyce's dwelling. They were, she was sure, the oldest kind of -light in all the world--Aladdin-lights that gleamed of old on caverns -of gems--till Kate on this particular evening came into the kitchen -with the week-end groceries. It was a stormy season--the year of the big -winds; moanings were at the windows, sobbings in the chimney-heads, and -the street was swept by spindrift rain. Bell and Ailie and their brother -sat in the parlor, silent, playing cards with a dummy hand, and Bud, -with Footles in her lap, behind the winter dikes on which clothes dried -before the kitchen fire, crouched on the fender with a Shakespeare, -where almost breathlessly she read the great, the glorious Macbeth. - -"My stars, what a night!" said Kate. "The way them slates and -chimney-cans are flying! It must be the antinuptial gales. I thought -every minute would by my next. Oh, towns! towns! Stop you till I get -back to Colonsay, and I'll not leave it in a hurry, I'll assure you." - -She threw a parcel on the kitchen dresser, and turned to the light a -round and rosy face that streamed with clean, cooling rain, her hair in -tangles on her temples and her eyes sparkling with the light of youth -and adventure--for to tell the truth she had been flirting at the door a -while, in spite of all the rain, with some admirer. - -Bud was the sort of child whose fingers itch in the presence of unopened -parcels--in a moment the string was untied from the week-end groceries. - -"Candles!" she cried. "Well, that beats the band! I've seen 'em in -windows. What in the world are you going to do with candles? One, two, -three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve--oh, -Laura, ain't we grand!" - -"What would we do with them but burn them?" said the maid; "we'll use -them in the washing-house," and then she sank into a chair. "Mercy on -me, I declare I'm dying!" she exclaimed, in a different key, and Bud -looked round and saw Kate's face had grown of a sudden very pale. - -"Oh, dear! what is the matter?" she asked, her eyes large, innocent, and -anxious. - -"Pains," moaned the maid. "Pains inside me and all over me, and -shiverings down the spine of the back. Oh, it's a sore thing pain, -especially when it's bad! But don't--don't say a word to the mustress; -I'm not that old, and maybe I'll get better." - -"Try pain-killer," recommended Bud. "And if I was you I'd start just -here and say a prayer. Butt right in and I'll not listen." - -"Pain-killer!--what in all the world's pain-killer? I never heard of -it. And the only prayer I know is 'My Father which art' in Gaelic, and -there's nothing in it about pains in the spine of the back. No, no! I'll -just have to take a table-spoonful of something or other three times -a day, the way I did when the doctor put me right in Colonsay. Perhaps -it's just a chill, but oh! I'm sorrowful, sorrowful!" and Kate, the -color coming slowly back to her, wept softly to herself, rocking in the -kitchen chair. It was sometimes by those odd hysterics that she paid for -her elations with the lads. - -"I know what's wrong with you," said Bud, briskly, in the manner of Mrs. -Molyneux. "It's just the croodles. Bless you, you poor, perishing soul! -I take the croodles myself when it's a night like this and I'm alone. -The croodles ain't the least wee bit deadly; you can put them away by -hustling at your work, or banging an old piano, or reading a story, or -playing that you're somebody else--Well, I declare, I think I could cure -you right now with these twelve candles, far better than you'd do by -shooting drugs into yourself." - -"I never took a single candle in all my life," said Kate, "far less -twelve, and I'll die first." - -"Silly!" exclaimed Bud. "You'd think to hear you speak you were a -starving Esquimau. I don't want you to eat the candles. Wait a minute." -She ran lightly up-stairs and was gone for ten minutes. - -Kate's color all revived; she forgot her croodles in the spirit of -anticipation that the child had roused. "Oh, but she's the clever one -that!" she said to herself, drying the rain and tears from her face and -starting to nibble a biscuit. "She knows as much as two ministers, and -still she's not a bit proud. Some day she'll do something desperate." - -When Bud came back she startled the maid by her appearance, for she had -clad herself, for the first time in Scotland, with a long, thin, copious -dancing-gown, in which a lady of the vaudeville, a friend of Mrs. -Molyneux's, had taught her dancing. - -"Ain't this dandy?" she said, closing the kitchen door, and there was a -glow upon her countenance and a movement of her body that, to the maid's -eyes, made her look a little woman. "Ain't this bully? Don't you stand -there looking like a dying Welsh rabbit, but help me light them candles -for the foot-lights. Why, I knew there was some use for these old -candles first time I set eyes on them; they made me think of something -I couldn't 'zactly think of--made me kind of gay, you know, just as if -I was going to the theatre. They're only candles, but there's twelve -lights to them all at once, and now you'll see some fun." - -"What in the world are you going to do, lassie?" asked the maid. - -"I'm going to be a Gorgeous Entertainment; I'm going to be the Greatest -Agg-Aggregation of Historic Talent now touring the Middle West. I'm -Mademoiselle Winifred Wallace, of Madison Square Theatre, New York, -positively appearing here for one night only. I'm the whole company, and -the stage manager, and the band, and the boys that throw the bouquets. -Biff! I'm checked high; all you've got to do is to sit there with your -poor croodles and feel them melt away. Let's light the foot-lights." - -There was a row of old brass bedroom candlesticks on the kitchen shelf -that were seldom used now in the house of Dyce, though their polish was -the glory of Miss Bell's heart. The child kilted up her gown, jumped on -a chair, and took them down with the help of Kate. She stuck in each -a candle, and ranged them in a semicircle on the floor, then lit the -candles and took her place behind them. - -"Put out the lamp!" she said to Kate, in the common voice of actors' -tragedy. - -"Indeed and I'll do nothing of the kind," said the maid. "If your auntie -Bell comes in she'll--she'll skin me alive for letting you play -such cantrips with her candles. Forbye, you're going to do something -desperate, something that's not canny, and I must have the lamp behind -me or I'll lose my wits." - -"Woman, put out the light!" repeated Bud, with an imperious, pointing -finger, and, trembling, Kate turned down the lamp upon the wall and -blew down the chimney in the very way Miss Dyce was always warning her -against. She gasped at the sudden change the loss of the light made--at -the sense of something idolatrous and bewitched in the arc of flames -on her kitchen floor, each blown inward from the draught of a rattling -window. - -"If it is _buidseachas_--if it is witchcraft of any kind you are on -for, I'll not have it," said Kate, firmly. "I never saw the like of this -since the old woman in Pennyland put the curse on the Colonsay factor, -and she had only seven candles. Dear, _dear_ Lennox, do not do anything -desperate; do not be carrying on, for you are frightening me out of my -judgment. I'm--I'm maybe better now; I took a bite at a biscuit; indeed, -I'm quite better; it was nothing but the cold--and a lad out there that -tried to kiss me." - -Bud paid no heed, but plucked up the edges of her skirt in out-stretched -hands and glided into the last dance she had learned from the vaudeville -lady, humming softly to herself an appropriate tune. The candles warmly -lit her neck, her ears, her tilted nostrils; her brow was high in -shadow. First she rose on tiptoe and made her feet to twitter on the -flags, then swayed and swung a little body that seemed to hang in -air. The white silk swept around and over her--wings with no noise of -flapping feather, or swirled in sea-shell coils, that rose in a ripple -from her ankles and swelled in wide, circling waves above her head, -revealing her in glimpses like some creature born of foam on fairy -beaches and holding the command of tempest winds. Ah, dear me! many and -many a time I saw her dance just so in her daft days before the chill -of wisdom and reflection came her way; she was a passion disembodied, -an aspiration realized, a happy morning thought, a vapor, a perfume -of flowers, for her attire had lain in lavender. She was the spirit -of spring, as I have felt it long ago in little woods, or seen it in -pictures, or heard it in songs; she was an ecstasy, she was a dream. - -The dog gave a growl of astonishment, then lay his length on the -hearth-rug, his nose between his paws, his eyes fixed on her. "I'll not -have it," said the maid, piteously. "At least I'll not stand much of it, -for it's not canny to be carrying on like that in a Christian dwelling. -I never did the like of that in all my life." - -"_Every_ move a picture," said the child, and still danced on, with -the moan of the wind outside for a bass to her low-hummed melody. Her -stretching folds flew high, till she seemed miraculous tall, and to the -servant's fancy might have touched the low ceiling; then she sank--and -sank--and sank till her forehead touched the floor, and she was a flower -fallen, the wind no more to stir its petals, the rain no more to glisten -on its leaves. 'Twas as if she shrivelled and died there, and Kate gave -one little cry that reached the players of cards in the parlor. - -"Hush! what noise was that?" said Ailie, lifting her head. - -"It would be Kate clumping across the kitchen floor in the Gaelic -language," said Mr. Dyce, pushing his specs up on his brow. - -"Nothing but the wind," said Bell. "What did you say was trump?"--for -that was the kind of player she was. - -"It was not the wind, it was a cry; I'm sure I heard a cry. I hope -there's nothing wrong with the little one," said Ailie, with a throbbing -heart, and she threw her cards on the table and went out. She came back -in a moment, her face betraying her excitement, her voice demanding -silence. - -"Of all the wonders!" said she. "Just step this way, people, to the -pantry." - -They rose and followed her. The pantry was all darkness. Through its -partly open door that led into the kitchen they saw their child in the -crescent of the candles, though she could not see them, as no more -could Kate, whose chair was turned the other way. They stood in silence -watching the strange performance, each with different feelings, but all -with eeriness, silent people of the placid, old, half-rustic world that -lives forever with realities and seldom sees the passions counterfeited. - -Bud had risen, her dark hair looking unnaturally black above her brow, -and, her dancing done, she was facing the dog and the servant, the only -audience of whose presence she was aware. - -"Toots!" said the maid, relieved that all seemed over, "that's nothing -in the way of dancing; you should see them dancing Gillie-Callum -over-bye in Colonsay! There's a dancer so strong there that he breaks -the very boards." - -Bud looked at her, and yet not wholly at her--through her--with burning -eyes. - -"Hush!" she said, trembling. "Do you not hear something?" and at that -moment, high over the town went the "honk, honk" of the wild geese. - -"Devil the thing but geeses!" said the maid, whose blood had curdled -for a second. The rain swept like a broom along the street, the gutters -bubbled, the shutters rapped, far above the dwelling went the sound of -the flying geese. - -"Oh, hush, woman, hush!" implored the child, her hands over her ears, -her figure cowering. - -"It's only the geeses. What a start you gave me!" said the maid again. - -"No, no," said Bud. - - "'Methought, I heard a voice cry, - "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent sleep; - Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, - ... sore labor's bath, - Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, - Chief nourisher in life's feast--' " - -"What do you mean?" cried Kate. - -"Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: Glamis hath murder'd -sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no -more." - -The child filled each phrase with a travesty of passion; she had seen -the part enacted. It was not, to be sure, a great performance. Some -words were strangely mutilated; but it was a child, and she had more -than a child's command of passion--she had feeling, she had heart. - -"I cannot look at you!" exclaimed Kate. "You are not canny, but oh! you -are--you are majestic! There was never the like of it in all the isles." - -Bell, in the darkness of the pantry, wept silently at some sense of -sin in this play-acting on a Saturday night; her brother held her arm -tightly. Ailie felt a vague unrest and discontent with herself, a touch -of envy and of shame. - -"Please collect the bouquets," said the child, seating herself on the -floor with her knees tucked high in her gown. "Are the croodles all -gone?" - -"It did me a lot of good, yon dancing," said Kate. "Did you put yon -words about Macbeth sleep no more together yourself?" - -"Yes," said Bud, and then repented. "No," she added, hurriedly, -"that's a fib; please, God, give me a true tongue. It was made by -Shakespeare--dear old Will!" - -"I'm sure I never heard of the man in all my life before; but he must -have been a bad one." - -"Why, Kate, you are as fresh as the mountain breeze," said Bud. "He was -Great! He was born at Stratford-on-Avon, a poor boy, and went to London -and held horses outside the theatre door, and then wrote plays so grand -that only the best can act them. He was--he was not for an age, but all -the time." - -She had borrowed the lesson as well as the manner of Auntie Ailie, who -smiled in the dark of the pantry at this glib rendering of herself. - -"Oh, I should love to play Rosalind," continued the child. "I should -love to play _everything_. When I am big, and really Winifred Wallace, I -will go all over the world and put away people's croodles same as I did -yours, Kate, and they will love me; and I will make them feel real good, -and sometimes cry--for that is beautiful, too. I will never rest, but go -on, and on, and on; and everywhere everybody will know about me--even in -the tiny minstrel towns where they have no or'nary luck but just coon -shows, for it's in these places croodles must be most catching. I'll go -there and play for nothing, just to show them what a dear soul Rosalind -was. I want to grow fast, fast! I want to be tall like my auntie Ailie, -and lovely like my dear auntie Ailie, and clever like my sweet, sweet -aunt Ailie." - -"She's big enough and bonny enough, and clever enough in some things," -said the maid; "but can she sew like her sister?--tell me that!" - -"Sew!" exclaimed the child, with a frown. "I _hate_ sewing. I guess -Auntie Ailie's like me, and feels sick when she starts a hem and sees -how long it is, and all to be gone over with small stitches." - -"Indeed, indeed I do," whispered Ailie in the pantry, and she was -trembling. She told me later how she felt--of her conviction then that -for her the years of opportunity were gone, the golden years that had -slipped past in the little burgh town without a chance for her to grasp -their offerings. She told me of her resolution there and then that this -child, at least, should have its freedom to expand. - -Bud crept to the end of the crescent of her footlights and blew out the -candles slowly one by one. The last she left a-light a little longer, -and, crouched upon the floor, she gazed with large, dreaming eyes into -its flame as if she read there. - -"It is over now," said Mr. Dyce, in a whisper, to his sisters, and with -his hands on their shoulders led them back into the parlor. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -SHE was wayward, she was passionate, she was sometimes wild. She was not -what, in the Pigeons' Seminary, could be called a good child, for -all her sins were frankly manifest, and she knew no fear nor naughty -stratagem; her mind, to all but Kate, was open as the day, and there it -was the fault of honest Kate's stupidity. But often Miss Bell must be -moaning at transgressions almost harmless in themselves, yet so terribly -unlike a Christian bairn, as when Bud spent an afternoon in a tent with -some _gypsy_ children, changed clothes with them the better to act a -part, and stormed because she could not have them in to tea with her. Or -when she asked Lady Anne, bazaar-collecting in the house of Dyce, if she -ever had had a proposal. It was a mercy that Lady Anne that very week -had had one, and was only too pleased to tell of it and say she had -accepted. - -"Then _you're_ safe out of the woods," said Bud, gravely. "There's our -Kate, she hasn't had a proposal yet, and I guess she's on the slopey -side of thirty. It must be dreff'le to be as old--as old as a house and -have no beau to love you. It must be 'scrudating." - -Lady Anne let her eyes turn for a moment on the sisters Dyce, and the -child observed and reddened. - -"Oh, Auntie Bell!" she said, quickly. "Auntie Bell had heaps and heaps -of beaux all dying to marry her, but she gave them the calm, cold eye -and said she had to cling to Uncle Dan. It was very noble of her, wasn't -it?" - -"Indeed it was!" admitted Lady Anne, very much ashamed of herself. - -"And Auntie Ailie is not on the slopey side of thirty," continued Bud, -determined to make all amends. "She's young enough to love dolls." - -It was Bell who censured her for this dreadful behavior. "You are a -perfect torment, Lennox," she said, at the first opportunity. "A bairn -like you must not be talking about beaux, and love, and proposals, and -nonsense of that kind--it's fair ridiculous." - -"Why, I thought love was the Great Thing!" exclaimed Bud, much -astonished. "It's in all the books, there's hardly anything else, 'cept -when somebody is murdered and you know that the man who did it is the -only one you don't suspect. Indeed, auntie, I thought it was the Great -Thing!" - -"And so it is, my dear," said Ailie. "There's very little else in all -the world, except--except the children," and she folded her niece in her -arms. "It _is_ the Great Thing; it has made Lady Anne prettier than ever -she was in her life before, it has made her brighter, humbler, gentler, -kinder. God bless her, I hope she will be happy." - -"But it was very wrong; it was a kind of fib for you to talk about me -having lots of lads in my time," said Auntie Bell. "You do not know -whether I had or not." - -Bud looked at her and saw a flush on her face. "I think," said she, "the -beaux must have been very stupid, then. But I guess there must have been -one, Auntie Bell, and you have forgotten all about him." And at that Miss -Bell went hurriedly from the room with a pretence that she heard a pot -boil over, and Ailie in a low voice told her niece all about Bell's -beau, deep drowned in the Indian Ocean. - -For days after that the child was tender with her elder aunt, and made -a splendid poem in blank verse upon the late Captain James Murray, which -Bell was never to see, but Ailie treasured. For days was she angelic -good. Her rages never came to fever heat. Her rebellions burned -themselves out in her bosom. Nobly she struggled with long division -and the grammar that she abominated; very meekly she took censure for -copy-books blotted and words shamefully misspelled in Uncle Daniel's -study. Some way this love that she had thought a mere amusement, like -shopping in Chicago, took a new complexion in her mind--became a dear -and solemn thing, like her uncle's Bible readings, when, on Sunday -nights at worship in the parlor, he took his audience through the desert -to the Promised Land, and the abandoned street was vocal with domestic -psalm from the provost's open window. She could not guess--how could -she, the child?--that love has its variety. She thought there was -but the one love in all the world--the same she felt herself for most -things--a gladness and agreement with things as they were. And yet at -times in her reading she got glimpses of love's terror and empire, as in -the stories of Othello and of Amy Robsart, and herself began to wish -she had a lover. She thought at first of Uncle Dan; but he could not -be serious, and she had never heard him sigh--in him was wanting some -remove, some mystery. What she wanted was a lover on a milk-white -steed, a prince who was "the flower o' them a'," as in Aunt Ailie's song -"Glenlogie"; and she could not imagine Uncle Dan with his spectacles on -riding any kind of steed, though she felt it would be nice to have him -with her when the real prince was there. - -Do you think it unlikely that this child should have such dreams? -Ah, then, you are not of her number, or you have forgotten. She never -forgot. Many a time she told me in after years of how in the attic -bower, with Footles snug at her feet, she conjured up the lad on the -milk-white steed, not so much for himself alone, but that she might act -the lady-love. And in those dreams she was tall and slender, sometimes -proud, disdainful, wounding the poor wretch with sharp words and cold -glances; or she was meek and languishing, sighing out her heart even in -presence of his true-love gifts of candy and P. & A. MacGlashan's penny -tarts. She walked with him in gardens enchanted; they sailed at nights -over calm, moonlit seas, and she would be playing the lute. She did not -know what the lute was like; but it was the instrument of love, and had -a dulcet sound, like the alto flutes in the burgh band. - -But, of course, no fairy prince came wooing Daniel Dyce's little niece, -though men there were in the place--elderly and bald, with married -daughters--who tried to buy her kisses for sixpences and sweets, and at -last she felt vicariously the joys of love by conducting the affairs of -Kate. - -Kate had many wooers--that is the solace of her class. They liked her -that she was genial and plump, with a flattering smile and a soft touch -of the Gaelic accent that in the proper key and hour is the thing to -break hearts. She twirled them all round her little finger, and Bud was -soon to see this and to learn that the maid was still very far from the -slopey side of thirty. But Kate, too, had her dreams--of some misty -lad of the mind, with short, curled hair, clothes brass-buttoned, and a -delicious smell of tar--something or other on a yacht. The name she had -endowed him with was Charles. She made him up from passing visions of -seamen on the quays, and of notions gleaned from her reading of penny -novelettes. - -One week-night Bud came on her in the kitchen dressed in her Sunday -clothes and struggling with a spluttering pen. - -"Are you at your lessons, too?" said the child. "You naughty Kate! -there's a horrid blot. No lady makes blots." - -"It wasn't me, it was this devilish pen; besides, I'm not a lady," said -Kate, licking the latest blot with her tongue and grimacing. "What way -do you spell weather?" - -"W-e-t-h-e-r," said Bud. "At least, I think that's the way; but I'd best -run and ask Aunt Ailie--she's a speller from Spellerville." - -"Indeed and you'll do nothing of the kind," cried the maid, alarmed and -reddening. "You'll do nothing of the kind, Lennox, because--I'm writing -to Charles." - -"A love-letter! Oh, I've got you with the goods on you!" exclaimed Bud, -enchanted. "And what are you doing with your hurrah clothes on?" - -"I like to put on my Sunday clothes when I'm writing Charles," said the -maid, a little put-about. "Do you think it's kind of daft?" - -"It's not daft at all, it's real cute of you; it's what I do myself when -I'm writing love-letters, for it makes me feel kind of grander. It's -just the same with poetry; I simply can't make really poetry unless I -have on a nice frock and my hands washed." - -"_You_ write love-letters!" said the maid, astounded. - -"Yes, you poor, perishing soul!" retorted Bud. "And you needn't yelp. -I've written scores of love-letters without stopping to take breath. -Stop! stop!" she interrupted herself, and breathed an inward little -prayer. "I mean that I write them--well, kind of write them--in my -mind." But this was a qualification beyond Kate's comprehension. - -"Then I wish you would give me a hand with this one," said she, -despairingly. "All the nice words are so hard to spell, and this is such -a bad pen." - -"They're _all_ bad pens; they're all devilish," said Bud, from long -experience. "But I'd love to help you write that letter. Let me -see--pooh! it's dreff'le bad, Kate. I can't read a bit of it, almost." - -"I'm sure and neither can I," said Kate, distressed. - -"Then how in the world do you expect Charles to read it?" asked Bud. - -"Oh, he's--he's a better scholar than me," said Kate, complacently. "But -you might write this one for me." - -Bud washed her hands, took a chair to the kitchen table, threw back -her hair from her eyes, and eagerly entered into the office of -love-letter-writer, "What will I say to him?" she asked. - -"My dear, dear Charles," said the maid, who at least knew so much. - -"My adorable Charles," said Bud, as an improvement, and down it went -with the consent of the dictator. - -"I'm keeping fine, and I'm very busy," suggested Kate, upon -deliberation. "The weather is capital here at present, and it is a good -thing, for the farmers are busy with their hay." - -Bud sat back and stared at her in amazement. "Are you sure this is for a -Charles?" she asked. "You might as well call him Sissy and talk frocks. -Why, you must tell him how you love him." - -"Oh, I don't like," said Kate, confused. "It sounds so--so bold and -impudent when you put it in the English and write it down. But please -yourself; put down what you like and I'll be dipping the pen for you." - -Bud was not slow to take the opportunity. For half an hour she sat at -the kitchen table and searched her soul for fitting words that would -convey Kate's adoration. Once or twice the maid asked what she was -writing, but all she said was: "Don't worry, Kate. I'm right in the -throes." There were blots and there were erasions, but something like -this did the epistle look when it was done: - -"My adorable Charles,--I am writing this letter to let you know how -much I truly love you. Oh Charles, dear, you are the Joy of my heart. -I am thinking of you so often, often, till my Heart just aches. It is -lovely wether here at present. Now I will tell you all about the Games. -They took place in a park near here Friday and there was seventeen -beautiful dances. They danced to give you spassums. One of them was a -Noble youth. He was a Prince in his own write, under Spells for sevn -years. When he danced, lo and behold he was the admiration of all -Beholders. Alas? poor youth. When I say alas I mean that it was so sad -being like that full of Spells in the flower of his youth. He looked at -me so sad when he was dancing, and I was so glad. It was just like money -from home. Dear Charles, I will tell you all about myself. I am full of -goodness most the time for God loves good people. But sometimes I am -not and I have a temper like two crost sticks when I must pray to be -changed. The dancing gentleman truly loves me to destruction. He kissed -my hand and hastily mountain his noble steed, galoped furiously away. -Ah, the coarse of true love never did run smooth. Perhaps he will fall -upon the forein plain. Dearest Charles--adorable--I must now tell -you that I am being educated for my proper station in life. There is -Geograpy, and penmanship with the right commas, and Long Division and -conjunctives which I abominate. But my teacher, a sweet lady named Miss -Alison Dyce, says they are all truly refining. Oh I am weary, weary, he -cometh not. That is for you, darling Charles, my own.--Your true heart -love, Kate MacNeill." - -"Is that all right?" asked Bud, anxiously. - -"Yes; at least it 'll do fine," said the maid, with that Highland -politeness that is often so bad for business. "There's not much about -himself in it, but och! it 'll do fine. It's as nice a letter as ever I -saw: the lines are all that straight." - -"But there's blots," said Bud, regretfully. "There oughtn't to be blots -in a real love-letter." - -"Toots! just put a cross beside each of them, and write 'this is a -kiss,"' said Kate, who must have had some previous experience. "You -forgot to ask him how's his health, as it leaves us at present." - -So Bud completed the letter as instructed. "Now for the envelope," said -she. - -"I'll put the address on it myself," said Kate, confused. "He would be -sure somebody else had been reading it if the address was not in my hand -of write"--an odd excuse, whose absurdity escaped the child. So the maid -put the letter in the bosom of her Sunday gown against her heart, where -meanwhile dwelt the only Charles. It is, I sometimes think, where we -should all deposit and retain our love-letters; for the lad and lass, -as we must think of them, have no existence any more than poor Kate's -Charles. - -119 - -Two days passed. Often in those two days would Bud come, asking -anxiously if there was any answer yet from Charles. As often the maid -of Colonsay reddened, and said with resignation there was not so much as -the scrape of a pen. "He'll be on the sea," she explained at last, "and -not near a post-office. Stop you till he gets near a post-office, and -you'll see the fine letter I'll get." - -"I didn't know he was a sailor," said Bud. "Why, I calculated he was a -Highland chieftain or a knight, or something like that. If I had known -he was a sailor I'd have made that letter different. I'd have loaded -it up to the nozzle with sloppy weather, and said, Oh, how sad I -was--that's you, Kate--to lie awake nights thinking about him out on the -heaving billow. Is he a captain?" - -"Yes," said Kate, promptly. "A full captain in the summer-time. In the -winter he just stays at home and helps on his mother's farm. Not a cheep -to your aunties about Charles, darling Lennox," she added, anxiously. -"They're--they're that particular!" - -"I don't think you're a true love at all," said Bud, reflecting on many -interviews at the kitchen window and the back door. "Just think of the -way you make goo-goo eyes at the letter-carrier and the butcher's man -and the ash-pit gentleman. What would Charles say?" - -"Toots! I'm only putting by the time with them," explained the -maid. "It's only a diversion. When I marry I will marry for my own -conveniency, and the man for me is Charles." - -"What's the name of his ship?" asked the child. "The _Good Intent_," -said Kate, who had known a skiff of the name in Colonsay. "A beautiful -ship, with two yellow chimneys, and flags to the masthead." - -"That's fine and fancy!" said Bud. "There was a gentleman who loved me -to destruction, coming over on the ship from New York, and loaded me -with candy. He was not the captain, but he had gold braid everywhere, -and his name was George Sibley Purser. He promised he would marry me -when I made a name for myself, but I 'spect Mister J. S. Purser 'll go -away and forget." - -"That's just the way with them all," said Kate. - -"I don't care, then," said Bud. "I'm all right; I'm not kicking." - -Next day the breakfast in the house of Dyce was badly served, for Kate -was wild to read a letter that the post had brought, and when she opened -it, you may be sure Bud was at her shoulder. It said: - -"Dearest Kate,--I love you truly and I am thinking of you most the time. -Thank God we was all safed. Now I will tell you all about the Wreck. The -sea was mountains high, and we had a cargo of spise and perils from Java -on the left-hand side the map as you go to Australia. When the Pirite -ship chased us we went down with all hands. But we constrickted a raft -and sailed on and on till we had to draw lots who would drink the blood. -Just right there a sailor cried 'A sail, A sail, and sure enough it was -a sail. And now I will tell you all about Naples. There is a monsterious -mountain there, or cone which belches horrid flames and lavar. Once -upon' a time it belched all over a town by the name of Pompy and it is -there till this very day. The bay of naples is the grandest in the world -it is called the golden horn. Dearest Katherine, I am often on the mast -at night. It is cold and shakey in that place and oh how the wind doth -blow, but I ring a bell and say alls well which makes the saloon people -truly glad. We had five stow-ways. One of them was a sweet fairhaired -child from Liverpool, he was drove from home. But a good and beautious -lady, one of the first new england families is going to adopt him and -make him her only air. How beautiful and bright he stood as born to rule -the storm. I weary for your letters darling Katherine.--Write soon to -your true love till death, Charles." - -Kate struggled through this extraordinary epistle with astonishment. -"Who in the world is it from?" she asked Bud. - -"Charles, stupid," said Bud, astonished that there should be any doubt -about that point. "Didn't I--didn't we write him the other night? It was -up to him to write back, wasn't it?" - -"Of course," said Kate, very conscious of that letter still unposted, -"but--but he doesn't say Charles anything, just Charles. It's a daft -like thing not to give his name; it might be anybody. There's my -Charles, and there's Charles Maclean from Oronsay--what way am I to know -which of them it is?" - -"It'll be either or eyether," said Bud. "Do you know Charles Maclean?" - -"Of course I do," said the maid. "He's following the sea, and we were -well acquaint." - -"Did he propose to you?" asked Bud. - -"Well, he did not exactly propose," admitted Kate, "but we sometimes -went a walk together to the churchyard on a Sunday, and you know -yourself what that means out in Colonsay. I'll just keep the letter and -think of it. It's the nicest letter I ever got, and full of information. -It's Charles Maclean, I'll warrant you, but he did not use to call me -Katherine--he just said Kate and his face would be as red as anything. -Fancy him going down with all hands! My heart is sore for him," and the -maid there and then transferred her devotion from the misty lad of her -own imagination to Charles Maclean of Oronsay. - -"You'll help me to write him a letter back to-night," she said. - -"Yes, indeed, I'll love to," said the child, wearily. But by the time -the night came on, and Wanton Wully rang his curfew bell, and the rooks -came clanging home to the tall trees of the forest, she was beyond all -interest in life or love. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -ANTON WULLY only briefly rang the morning bell, and gingerly, with -tight-shut lips and deep nose breathings, as if its loud alarm could so -be mitigated. Once before he had done it just as delicately--when the -Earl was dying, and the bell-ringer, uncertain of his skill to toll, -when the time came, with the right half-minute pauses, grieved the town -and horrified the castle by a rehearsal in the middle of a winter night. -But no soul of mercy is in brazen bells that hang aloof from man -in lofty steeples, and this one, swung ever so gently, sullenly -boomed--boomed--boomed. - -"Oh, to the devil wi' ye!" said Wanton Wully, sweating with vexation. -"Of all the senseless bells! A big, boss bluiter! I canna compel nor -coax ye!" and he gave the rope one vicious tug that brought it, broken, -round his ears, then went from the church into the sunny, silent, -morning street, where life and the day suspended. - -In faith, a senseless bell, a merciless bell, waking folk to toil and -grief. Dr. Brash and Ailie, heavy-eyed, beside the bed in the attic -bower, shivered at the sound of it, and looked with fear and yearning at -the sleeping child. - -Bud moved her head from side to side a little on the pillow, with -a murmur from her parched lips, and there was a flicker of the -eyelids--that was all. Between her and the everlasting swound, where -giddily swings the world and all its living things, there seemed no -more than a sheet of tissue-paper: it was as if a breath of the tender -morning air would quench the wavering flame that once was joy and Lennox -Dyce. The heart of Auntie Ailie rose clamoring in her bosom; her eyes -stung with the brine of tears restrained, but she clinched her teeth -that she might still be worthy of the doctor's confidence. - -He saw it, and put out his hand and pressed her shoulder, a fat, -old-fashioned man, well up in years, with whiskers under his chin like -a cravat, yet beautiful as a prince to Ailie, for on him all her hopes -were cast. "They call me agnostic--atheist even, whiles, I hear," he -said, in the midst of their vigil; "and, indeed, I'm sometimes beat -to get my mind beyond the mechanism, but--h'm!--a fine child, a noble -child; she was made for something--h'm! That mind and talent--h'm!--that -spirit--h'm!--the base of it was surely never yon gray stuff in the -convolutions." And another time the minister had come in (the folk -in the street were furious to see him do it!), and timidly suggested -prayer. "Prayer!" said Dr. Brash, "before this child, and her -quite conscious! Man, what in God's own name are we doing here, -this--h'm!--dear, good lady and I, but fever ourselves with sleepless, -silent prayer? Do you think a proper prayer must be official? There's -not a drop of stuff in a druggist's bottle but what's a solution of hope -and faith and--h'm!--prayer. Confound it, sir!" - -He put out his hand and pressed her on the shoulder, and never said -a word. Oh, the doctors! the doctors! Hale men and hearty, we can see -their shortcomings and can smile at them, but when the night-light burns -among the phials! - -It was the eighth day after Kate, with a face of clay and her sleeves -rolled up, and the dough still on her elbows as she had come from the -baking-board, burst upon the doctor in his surgery with the cry, "Dr. -Brash, Dr. Brash! ye're to haste ye and come at once to the wee one!" He -had gone as nearly on the wings of the wind as a fat man may in carpet -slippers, and found a distracted family round the fevered child. - -"Tut, tut, lassie," said he, chucking her lightly under the chin. "What -new prank is this, to be pretending illness? Or if it's not a let-on, -I'll be bound it's MacGlashan's almond tablet." - -"It's these cursed crab-apples in the garden; I'm sure it's the -crab-apples, doctor," said Miss Bell, looking ten years older than her -usual. - -"H'm! I think not," said Dr. Brash, more gravely, with his finger on the -pulse. - -"It's bound to be," said Bell, piteous at having to give up her only -hope. "Didn't you eat some yesterday, pet, after I told you that you -were not for your life to touch them?" - -"No," said Bud, with hot and heavy breathing. "Then why didn't ye, why -didn't ye; and then it might have been the apples?" said poor Miss Bell. -"You shouldn't have minded me; I'm aye so domineering." - -"No, you're not," said Bud, wanly smiling. - -"Indeed I am; the thing's acknowledged and you needn't deny it," said -her auntie. "I'm desperate domineering to you." - -"Well, I'm--I'm not kicking," said Bud. It was the last cheerful -expression she gave utterance to for many days. - -Wanton Wully was not long the only one that morning in the sunny street. -Women came out unusually early, as it seemed, to beat their basses; but -the first thing that they did was to look at the front of Daniel Dyce's -house with a kind of terror lest none of the blinds should be up and Mr. -Dyce's old kid glove should be off the knocker. "Have you heard what way -she is keeping to-day?" they asked the bellman. - -"Not a cheep!" said he. "I saw Kate sweepin' out her door-step, but I -couldna ask her. That's the curse of my occupation; I wish to goodness -they had another man for the grave-diggin'." - -"You and your graves!" said the women. "Who was mentioning them?" - -He stood on the siver-side and looked at the blank front of Daniel -Dyce's house with a gloomy eye. "A perfect caution!" he said, "that's -what she was--a perfect caution! She called me Mr. Wanton and always -asked me how was my legs." - -"Is there anything wrong with your legs?" said one of the women. - -"Whiles a weakness," said Wanton Wully, for he was no hypocrite. "Her -uncle tell't me once it was a kind o' weakness that they keep on gantrys -doon in Maggie White's. But she does not understand--the wee one; -quite the leddy! she thought it was a kind o' gout. Me! I never had the -gout--I never had the money for it, more's the pity." - -He went disconsolate down the street to get his brush and barrow, for he -was, between the morning bell and breakfast-time, the burgh's cleansing -department. Later--till the middle of the day--he was the harbor-master, -wore a red-collared coat and chased the gulls from the roofs of the -shipping-boxes and the boys from the slip-side where they might fall in -and drown themselves; his afternoons had half a dozen distinct official -cares, of which, in that wholesome air, grave-digging came seldomest. -This morning he swept assiduously and long before the house of Daniel -Dyce. Workmen passing yawning to their tasks in wood and garden, field -and shed, looked at the muffled knocker and put the question; their -wives, making, a little later, a message to the well, stopped, too, put -down their water-stoups, and speculated on the state of things within. -Smoke rose from more than one chimney in the Dyces' house. "It's the -parlor fire," said Wanton Wully. "It means breakfast. Cheery Dan, they -say, aye makes a hearty breakfast; I like to see the gift in a man -mysel' though I never had it; it's a good sign o' him the night before." - -Peter the post came clamping by-and-by along the street with his -letters, calling loudly up the closes, less willing than usual to climb -the long stairs, for he was in a hurry to reach the Dyces'. Not the -window for him this morning, nor had it been so for a week, since Kate -no longer hung on the sashes, having lost all interest in the outer -world. He went tiptoe through the flagged close to the back door and -lightly tapped. - -"What way is she this morning?" said he, in the husky whisper that was -the best he could control his voice to, and in his eagerness almost -mastered his roving eye. - -"She's got the turn!--she's got the turn!" said the maid, transported. -"Miss Dyce was down the now and told me that her temper was reduced." - -"Lord help us! I never knew she had one," said the post. - -"It's no' temper that I mean," said Kate, "but yon thing that you -measure wi' the weather-glass the doctor's aye so cross wi' that he -shakes and shakes and shakes at it. But, anyway, she's better. I hope -Miss Ailie will come down for a bite; if not she'll starve hersel'." - -"That's rare! By George, that's tip-top!" said the postman, so uplifted -that he went off with the M.C. step he used at Masons' balls, and would -have clean forgotten to give Kate the letters if she had not cried him -back. - -Wanton Wully sat on a barrow-tram waiting the postman's exit. "What -way is she?" said he, and Peter's errant eye cocked to all parts of the -compass. What he wanted was to keep this titbit to himself, to have the -satisfaction of passing it along with his letters. To give it to Wanton -Wully at this stage would be to throw away good-fortune. It was said by -Daniel Dyce that the only way to keep a dead secret in the burgh was to -send Wully and his handbell round the town with it as public crier. -When Wanton Wully cried, it beat you to understand a word he said after -"Notice!" but unofficially he was marvellously gleg at circulating news. -"What way is she?" he asked again, seeing the postman's hesitation. - -"If ye'll promise to stick to the head o' the toun and let me alone in -the ither end, I'll tell ye," said Peter, and it was so agreed. - -But they had not long all the glory of the good tidings to themselves. -Dr. Brash came out of Dyce's house for the first time in two days, very -sunken in the eyes and sorely needing shaving, and it could be noticed -by the dullest that he had his jaunty walk and a flower in the lapel of -his badly crushed coat. Ailie put it there with trembling fingers; she -could have kissed the man besides, if there had not been the chance -that he might think her only another silly woman. Later Footles hurled -himself in fury from the doorway, his master close behind him. At the -sight of Mr. Dyce the street was happy; it was the first time they had -seen him for a week. In burgh towns that are small enough we have this -compensation, that if we have to grieve in common over many things, a -good man's personal joy exalts us all. - -"She's better, Mr. Dyce, I'm hearing," said P. & A. MacGlashan, wiping -his hands on his apron to prepare for a fervent clasp from one who he -ought to have known was not of the fervent-clasping kind. - -"Thank God! Thank God!" said Mr. Dyce. "You would know she was pretty -far through?" - -"Well--we kind of jaloused. But we kent there was no danger--the thing -would be ridiculous!" said P. & A. MacGlashan, and went into his shop in -a hurry, much uplifted, too, and picked out a big bunch of black grapes -and sent his boy with them, with his compliments, to Miss Lennox Dyce, -care of Daniel Dyce, Esquire, Writer. - -Miss Minto so adored the man she could not show herself to him in an -hour like that; for she knew that she must weep, and a face begrutten -ill became her, so in she came from the door of her Emporium and watched -him pass the window. She saw in him what she had never seen before--for -in his clothing he was always trim and tidy, quite perjink, as -hereabouts we say--she saw, with the sharp eyes of a woman who looks at -the man she would like to manage, that his hat was dusty and his boots -not very brightly polished. More than all the news that leaked that week -from the Dyces' dwelling it realized for her the state of things there. - -"Tcht! tcht! tcht!" she said to herself; "three of them yonder, and he's -quite neglected!" She went into a back room, where gathered the stuff -for her Great Annual Jumble Sales with ninepenny things at sevenpence -ha'penny, and searched a drawer that sometimes had revealed tremendous -joy to Lennox and other bairns who were privileged to see what they -called "Miss Minto's back." In the drawer there was a doll called Grace, -a large, robust, and indestructible wooden child that had shared Miss -Minto's youth and found the years more kindly than she, since it got -no wrinkles thinking on the cares of competition in the millinery and -mantua-making trade, but dozed its days away upon feathers and silk and -velvet swatches. Grace was dressed like a queen--if queens are attired -in gorgeous, hand-stitched remnants; she had so long been part of Miss -Minto's life that the mantua-maker swithered in her first intention. But -she thought how happy Mr. Dyce must be that day, and hurriedly packed -the doll in a box and went round herself with it for Lennox Dyce. - -As she knocked lightly at the front door, the old kid glove came loose -in her hand--an omen! One glance up and down the street to see that no -one noticed her, and then she slipped it in her pocket, with a guilty -countenance. She was not young, at least she was not in her 'teens, but -young enough to do a thing like that for luck and her liking of Daniel -Dyce. Yet her courage failed her, and when Kate came to the door the -first thing she handed to her was the glove. - -"It fell off," she said. "I hope it means that it's no longer needed. -And this is a little thing for Miss Lennox, Kate; you will give her it -with my compliments. I hear there's an improvement?" - -"You wouldna _believe_ it!" said Kate. "Thank God she'll soon be -carrying on as bad as ever!" - -Mr. Dyce would not have cared a rap that morning if he had come upon his -clerks at Catch-the-Ten, or even playing leap-frog on their desks. -He was humming a psalm you may guess at as he looked at the documents -heaped on his table--his calf-bound books and the dark, japanned -deed-boxes round his room. - -"Everything just the same, and business still going on!" he said to his -clerk. "Dear me! dear me! what a desperate world! Do you know, I had the -notion that everything was stopped. No, when I think of it, I oftener -fancied all this was a dream." - -"Not Menzies vs. Kilblane, at any rate," said the clerk, with his hand -on a bulky Process, for he was a cheery soul and knew the mind of Daniel -Dyce. - -"I dare say not," said the lawyer. "That plea will last a while, I'm -thinking. And all about a five-pound fence! Let you and me, Alexander, -thank our stars there are no sick bairns in the house of either Menzies -or Kilblane, for then they would understand how much their silly fence -mattered, and pity be on our Table-of-Fees!" He tossed over the papers -with an impatient hand. "Trash!" said he. "What frightful trash! I can't -be bothered with them--not to-day. They're no more to me than a docken -leaf. And last week they were almost everything. You'll have heard the -child has got the turn?" - -"I should think I did!" said Alexander. "And no one better pleased to -hear it!" - -"Thank you, Alick. How's the family?" - -"Fine," said the clerk. - -"Let me think, now--seven, isn't it? A big responsibility." - -"Not so bad as long's we have the health," said Alexander. - -"Yes, yes," said Mr. Dyce. "All one wants in this world is the -health--and a little more money. I was just thinking--" He stopped -himself, hummed a bar of melody, and twinkled through his spectacles. -"You'll have read Dickens?" said he. - -"I was familiar with his works when I was young," said Alexander, like a -man confessing that in youth he played at bools. "They were not bad." - -"Just so! Well, do you know there was an idea came to my mind just now -that's too clearly the consequence of reading Dickens for a week back, -so I'll hold my hand and keep my project for another early occasion when -it won't be Dickens that's dictating." - -He went early back that day, to relieve Ailie at her nursing, as he -pretended to himself, but really for his own delight in looking at the -life in eyes where yesterday was a cloud. A new, fresh, wholesome air -seemed to fill the house. Bud lay on high pillows, with Miss Minto's -Grace propped against her knees, and the garret was full of the odor of -flowers that had come in a glorious bunch from the banker's garden. Bell -had grown miraculously young again, and from between Ailie's eyebrows -had disappeared the two black lines that had come there when Dr. Brash -had dropped in her ear the dreadful word pneumonia. But Dr. Brash had -beaten it! Oh, if she only knew the way to knit a winter waistcoat for -him! - -The child put out her hand to her uncle, and he kissed her on the -palm, frightful even yet of putting a lip to her cheek, lest he should -experience again the terror of the hot breath from that consuming inward -fire. - -"Well," said he, briskly, "how's our health, your ladyship? Losh bless -me! What a fine, big, sonsy baby you have gotten here; poor Alibel's -nose will be out of joint, I'm thinking." - -"Hasn't got any," said Bud, still weakly, in her new, thin, and -unpractised voice, as she turned with a look that showed no lessening -affection for the old doll, badly battered in the visage and wanting in -the limbs, which lay beside her on the pillow. - -"Blythmeat and breadberry," said Daniel Dyce. "In the house of Daniel -Dyce! Bell and Ailie, here's an example for you!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -FOLLOWING on stormy weeks had come an Indian summer, when the world was -blessed with Ailie's idea of Arden weather, that keeps one wood forever -green and glad with company, knows only the rumor of distant ice and -rain, and makes men, reading thereof by winter fires, smell fir and feel -the breeze on their naked necks and hunger for the old, abandoned bed -among the brackens. "It is better to hear the lark sing than the mouse -squeak," was the motto of Daniel Dyce, and though the larks were absent, -he would have the little one' in the garden long hours of the day. She -basked there like a kitten in the sunlight till her wan cheek bloomed. -The robin sang among the apples--pensive a bit for the ear of age that -knows the difference between the voice of spring and autumn--sweet -enough for youth that happily does not have an ear for its gallant -melancholy; the starlings blew like a dust about the sky; over -the garden wall--the only one in the town that wanted broken -bottles--far-off hills raised up their heads to keek at the little -lassie, who saw from this that the world was big and glorious as ever. - -"My! ain't this fine and clean?" said Bud. "Feels as if Aunt Bell had -been up this morning bright and early with a duster." She was enraptured -with the blaze of the nasturtiums, that Bell would aye declare should be -the flower of Scotland, for "Indian cress here, or Indian cress there," -as she would say "they're more like Scots than any flower I ken. The -poorer the soil the better they thrive, and they come to gold where all -your fancy flowers would rot for the want of nutriment. Nutriment! Give -them that in plenty and you'll see a bonny display of green and no' much -blossom. The thing's a parable--the worst you can do with a Scotsman, -if you want the best from him, 's to feed him ower rich. Look at Captain -Consequence, never the same since he was abroad--mulligatawny even-on in -India; a score of servant-men, and never a hand's turn for himself--all -the blossom from that kind of Indian cress is on his nose." - -"Land's sake! I _am_ glad I'm not dead," said Bud, with all her body -tingling as she heard the bees buzz in the nasturtium bells and watched -the droll dog Footles snap at the butterflies. - -"It's not a bad world, one way and the other," said Miss Bell, knitting -at her side; "it would have been a hantle worse if we had the making -o't. But here we have no continuing city, and yonder--if the Lord -had willed--you would have gone sweeping through the gates of the new -Jerusalem." - -"Sweeping!" said the child. "I can't sweep for keeps; Kate won't give me -a chance to learn. But, anyhow, I guess this is a good enough world for -a miserable sinner like me." - -Mr. Dyce, who had carried her, chair and all, into the garden, though -she could have walked there, chuckled at this confession. - -"Dan," said Bell, "think shame of yourself! you make the child -light-minded." - -"The last thing I would look for in women is consistency," said he, -"and I dare say that's the way I like them. What is it Ailie quotes from -Emerson? - - 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,' - ---that kind of goblin never scared a woman in the dark yet. But surely -you'll let me laugh when I think of you chiding her gladness in life -to-day, when I mind of you last week so desperate throng among the -poultices." - -"I'm for none of your lawyer arguments," said Bell, trying in vain to -gag herself with a knitting-pin from one of the Shetland shawls she had -been turning out for years with the hope that some day she could keep -one for herself. "It might have been that 'she pleased God and was -beloved of Him, so that, living among sinners'--among sinners, Dan--'she -was translated. Yea, speedily was she taken away, lest that wickedness -should alter her understanding, or deceit beguile her soul.'" - -"I declare if I haven't forgot my peppermints!" said her brother, -quizzing her, and clapping his outside pockets. "A consoling text! I -have no doubt at all you could enlarge upon it most acceptably, but -confess that you are just as glad as me that there's the like of Dr. -Brash." - -"I like the doc," the child broke in, with most of this dispute beyond -her; "he's a real cuddley man. Every time he rapped at my chest I wanted -to cry 'Come in.' Say, isn't he slick with a poultice!" - -"He was slick enough to save your life, my dear," said Uncle Dan, -soberly. "I'm almost jealous of him now, for Bud's more his than mine." - -"Did he make me better?" asked the child. - -"Under God. I'm thinking we would have been in a bonny habble wanting -him." - -"I don't know what a bonny habble is from Adam," said Bud, "but I bet -the doc wasn't _everything_--there was that prayer, you know." - -"Eh?" exclaimed her uncle, sharply. - -"Oh, I heard you, Uncle Dan," said Bud, with a sly look up at him. -"I wasn't sleeping really that night, and I was awful liable to have -tickled you on the bald bit of your head. I never saw it before. I could -have done it easily if it wasn't that I was so tired; and my breath was -so sticky that I had to keep on yanking it, just; and you were so solemn -and used such dre'ffle big words. I didn't tickle you, but I thought I'd -help you pray, and so I kept my eyes shut and said a bit myself. Say, I -want to tell you something"--she stammered, with a shaking lip--"I felt -real mean when you talked about a sinless child; of course you didn't -know, but it was--it wasn't true. I know why I was taken ill: it was a -punishment for telling fibs to Kate. I was mighty frightened that I'd -die before I had a chance to tell you." - -"Fibs!" said Mr. Dyce, seriously. "That's bad. And I'm loath to think it -of you, for it's the only sin that does not run in the family, and the -one I most abominate." - -Bell stopped her knitting, quite distressed, and the child lost her -new-come bloom. "I didn't mean it for fibs," she said, "and it wasn't -anything I said, but a thing I did when I was being Winifred Wallace. -Kate wanted me to write a letter--" - -"Who to?" demanded Auntie Bell. - -"It was to--it was to--oh, I daren't tell you," said Bud, distressed. -"It wouldn't be fair, and maybe she'll tell you herself, if you ask her. -Anyhow, I wrote the letter for her, and seeing she wasn't getting any -answer to it, and was just looney for one, and I was mighty keen myself, -I turned Winny on, and wrote one. I went out and posted it that dre'ffle -wet night you had the party, and I never let on to Kate, so she took it -for a really really letter from the person we sent the other one to. I -got soaked going to the post-office, and that's where I guess God began -to play _His_ hand. Jim said the Almighty held a royal flush every -blessed time; but that's card talk; I don't know what it means, 'cept -that Jim said it when the 'Span of Life' manager skipped with the -boodle--lit out with the cash, I mean--and the company had to walk home -from Kalamazoo on the railroad ties." - -"Mercy on us! I never heard a word of it," cried Miss Bell. "This 'll -be a warning! People that have bairns to manage shouldn't be giving -parties; it was the only night since ever you came here that we never -put you to your bed. Did Kate not change your clothes when you came in -wet?" - -"She didn't know I was out, for that would have spoiled everything, -'cause she'd have asked me what I was doing out, and I'd have had to -tell her, for I can't fib that kind of fib. When I came in all soaking, -I took a teeny-weeny loan of uncle's tartan rug, and played to Kate -I was Helen Macgregor, and Kate went into spasms, and didn't notice -anything till my clothes were dry. Was it very very naughty of me?" - -"It was, indeed! It was worse than naughty, it was silly," said her -uncle Dan, remembering all the prank had cost them. - -"Oh, Lennox, my poor, sinful bairn!" said her aunt, most melancholy. - -"I didn't mean the least harm," protested the child, trembling on the -verge of tears. "I did it all to make Kate feel kind of gay, for I -hate to see a body mope--and I wanted a little fun myself," she added, -hastily, determined to confess all. - -"I'll Kate her, the wretch!" cried Auntie Bell, quite furious, gathering -up her knitting. - -"Why, Auntie Bell, it wasn't her fault, it was--" - -But before she could say more Miss Bell was flying to the house for an -explanation, Footles barking at her heels astonished, for it was the -first time he had seen her trot with a ball of wool trailing behind her. -The maid had the kitchen window open to the last inch, and looked out -on a street deserted but for a ring of bairns that played before the -baker's door. Their voices, clear and sweet, and laden with no sense of -care or apprehension, filled the afternoon with melody-- - - "'Water, water wall-flowers, - Growing up so high, - We are all maidens - And we must all die.'" - -To the maid of Colonsay in an autumn mood the rhyme conveyed some -pensive sentiment that was pleasant though it almost made her cry: the -air slipped to her heart, the words in some way found the Gaelic chord -that shakes in sympathy with minor keys, for beautiful is all the world, -our day of it so brief! Even Miss Bell was calmed by the children's song -as it came from the sunny street into the low-ceiled, shady kitchen. She -had played that game herself, sting these words long ago, never thinking -of their meaning--how pitiful it was that words and a tune should so -endure, unchanging, and all else alter! - -"Kate, Kate, you foolish lass!" she cried, and the maid drew in with the -old astonishment and remorse, as if it was her first delinquency. - -"I--I was looking for the post," said she. - -"Not for the first time, it seems," said her mistress. "I'm sorry -to hear it was some business of yours that sent Miss Lennox to the -post-office on a wet night that was the whole cause of our tribulation. -At least you might have seen the wean was dried when she came back." - -"I'm sure and I don't know what you're talking about, m'em," said the -maid, astounded. - -"You got a letter the day the bairn took ill; what was it about?" - -The girl burst into tears and covered her head with her apron. "Oh, Miss -Dyce, Miss Dyce!" she cried, "you're that particular, and I'm ashamed to -tell you. It was only just diversion." - -"Indeed, and you must tell me," said her mistress, now determined. -"There's some mystery here that must be cleared, as I'm a living woman. -Show me that letter this instant!" - -"I can't, Miss Dyce, I can't; I'm quite affronted. You don't ken who -it's from." - -"I ken better than yourself; it's from nobody but Lennox," said Miss -Bell. - -"My stars!" cried the maid, astonished. "Do you tell me that? Amn't -I the stupid one? I thought it was from Charles. Oh, m'em, what will -Charles Maclean of Oronsay think of me? He'll think I was demented," and -turning to her servant's chest she threw it open and produced the second -sham epistle. - -Miss Bell went in with it to Ailie in the parlor, and they read it -together. Ailie laughed till the tears came at the story it revealed. -"It's more creditable to her imagination than to my teaching in grammar -and spelling," was her only criticism. "The--the little rogue!" - -"And is that the way you look at it?" asked Bell, disgusted. "A pack of -lies from end to end. She should be punished for it; at least she should -be warned that it was very wicked." - -"Stuff and nonsense," said Miss Ailie. "I think she has been punished -enough already, if punishment was in it. Just fancy if the Lord could -make so much ado about a little thing like that! It's not a pack of lies -at all, Bell; it's literature, it's romance." - -"Well, romancing!" said Miss Bell. "What's romancing if you leave out -Walter Scott? I am glad she has a conviction of the sin of it herself. -If she had slipped away from us on Wednesday this letter would have been -upon her soul. It's vexing her now." - -"If that is so, it's time her mind was relieved," said Ailie, and, -rising, sped to the garden with the letter in her hand. Her heart bled -to see the apprehension on Bud's face, and beside her Dan stroking her -hair and altogether bewildered. - -"Bud," cried Ailie, kissing her, "do you think you could invent a lover -for me who would write me letters half so interesting as this? It's a -lover like that I have all the time been waiting for: the ordinary kind, -by all my reading, must be very dull in their correspondence, and the -lives they lead deplorably humdrum-- - - "'Oh, Charlie is my darling, my darling, my darling; - Oh, Charlie is my darling, the young marineer.' - -After this I'll encourage only sailors. Bud, dear, get me a nice, clean -sailor. But I stipulate that he must be more discriminating with his -capitals, and know that the verb must agree with its nominative, and not -be quite so much confused in his geography." - -"You're not angry with me, aunt?" said Bud, in a tone of great relief, -with the bloom coming back. "Was it very, very wicked?" - -"Pooh!" said Ailie. "If that's wicked, where's our Mr. Shakespeare? Oh, -child! child! you are my own heart's treasure. I thought a girl called -Alison I used to know long ago was long since dead and done with, and -here she's to the fore yet, daft as ever, and her name is Lennox Dyce." - -"No, it wasn't Lennox wrote that letter," said Bud; "it was Winifred -Wallace, and oh, my! she's a pretty tough proposition. You're quite, -_quite_ sure it wasn't fibbing." - -"No more than Cinderella's fibbing," said her aunt, and flourished the -letter in the face of Dan, who she saw was going to enter some dissent. -"Behold, Dan Dyce, the artist b-r-r-rain! Calls sailor sweethearts from -the vasty deep, and they come obedient to her bidding. Spise and perils, -Dan, and the golden horn a trifle out of its latitude, and the darling -boy that's _always_ being drove from home. One thing you overlooked in -the boy, Bud--the hectic flush. I'm sure Kate would have liked a touch -of the hectic flush in him." - -But Bud was still contrite, thinking of the servant. "She was so set -upon a letter from her Charles," she explained, "and now she'll have -to know that I was joshing her. Perhaps I shouldn't say joshing, Auntie -Ailie--I s'pose it's slang." - -"It is," said her aunt, "and most unlady-like; let us call it pulling -her le--let us call it--oh, the English language! I'll explain it all to -Kate, and that will be the end of it." - -"Kate'd be dre'ffle rattled to talk about love to a grown-up lady," -said Bud, on thinking. "I'd best go in and explain it all myself." - -"Very well," said Auntie Ailie; so Bud went into the house and through -the lobby to the kitchen. - -"I've come to beg your pardon, Kate," said she, hurriedly. "I'm sorry -I--I--pulled your leg about that letter you thought was from Charles." - -"Toots! Ye needn't bother about my leg or the letter, either," said -Kate, most cheerfully, with another letter open in her hand, and Mr. -Dyce's evening mail piled on the table before her; "letters are like -herring now, they're comin' in in shoals. I might have kent yon one -never came from Oronsay, for it hadn't the smell of peats. I have a real -one now that's new come in from Charles, and it's just a beauty! He got -his leg broken on the boats a month ago, and Dr. Macphee's attending -him. Oh, I'm that glad to think that Charles's leg is in the hands of a -kent face!" - -"Why, that's funny," said Bud. "And we were just going to write--oh, you -mean the other Charles?" - -"I mean Charles Maclean," said Kate, with some confusion. "I--I--was -only lettin' on about the other Charles; he was only a diversion." - -"But you sent him a letter?" cried Bud. - -"Not me!" said Kate, composedly. "I kept it, and I sent it on to Charles -out in Oronsay when you were poorly; it did fine! He says he's glad to -hear about my education and doesn't think much of gentlemen that -dances, but that he's always glad to get the scrape of a pen from me, -because--because--well, just because he loves me still the same, yours -respectfully, Charles Maclean. And oh, my stars, look at what a lot of -crosses!" - -Bud scrutinized them with amazement. "Well, _he's_ a pansy!" said she. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -SUDDENLY all the town began to talk of the pride of Kate MacNeill. She -took to wearing all her best on week-days, abandoned the kitchen window, -and ruined an old-established trade in pay-night sweeties that used to -shower on her in threepenny packets at the start of every autumn when -the days grew short. No longer blate young lads scraped with their feet -uneasily in the sawdust of P. & A. Mac-Glashan's, swithering between the -genteel attractions of Turkish Delight and the eloquence of conversation -lozenges that saved a lot of thinking and made the blatest equal with -the boldest when it came to tender badinage below the lamp at the -back-door close with Dyce's maid. Talk about the repartee of salons! wit -moves deliberately there compared with the swift giff-gaff that Kate -and her lads were used to maintain with sentiments doubly sweet and -ready-made at threepence the quarter pound. So fast the sweeties passed, -like the thrust and riposte of rapiers, that their final purpose -was forgotten; they were sweeties no longer to be eaten, but scented -billets-doux, laconic of course, but otherwise just as satisfactory -as those that high-born maidens get only one at a time and at long -intervals when their papas are out at business. - -"Are you engaged?" - -"Just keep spierin'." - -"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." - -"You are a gay deceiver." - -"My heart is yours." - -"How are your poor feet?" - -By the hour could Kate sustain such sparkling flirtations, or at least -till a "Kiss me, dearest" turned up from the bottom of the poke, and -then she slapped his face for him. It is the only answer out in Colonsay -unless he's your intended. - -But it stopped all at once. P. & A. was beat to understand what way his -pay-night drawings fell, until he saw that all the lads were taking the -other side of the street. "That's _her_ off, anyway!" said he to Mrs. -P. & A., with a gloomy visage. "I wonder who's the lucky man? It's maybe -Peter--she'll no' get mony lozengers from him." - -And it was not only the decline in votive offerings that showed the -vital change: she was not at the Masons' ball, which shows how wrong -was the thought of P. & A., for Peter was there with another lady. Very -cheery, too, exceedingly cheery, ah, desperately gay, but quite beyond -the comprehension of his partner, Jenny Shand, who was unable to fathom -why a spirit so merry in the hall should turn to groans and bitterness -when, feeling a faintish turn, she got him in behind the draught-screen -on the landing of the stair to sit the "Flowers o' Edinburgh." He was -fidging fain to tell her plainly what he thought of all her sex, but -strove like a perfect gentleman against the inclination, and only said, -"Ha! ha! do you say so, noo?" and "Weemen!" with a voice that made them -all out nothing more nor less than vipers. Poor Jenny Shand! -bonny Jenny Shand! what a shame she should be bothered with so -ill-faured a fellow! When she was picking bits of nothing off his coat -lapel, as if he was her married man, and then coming to herself with a -pretty start and begging pardon for her liberty, the diffy paid no heed; -his mind was down the town, and he was seeing himself yesterday morning -at the first delivery getting the window of Dyce's kitchen banged in his -face when he started to talk about soap, meaning to work the topic round -to hands and gloves. He had got the length of dirty hands, and asked the -size of hers, when bang! the window went, and the Hielan' one in among -her pots and pans. - -It was not any wonder, for other lads as deliberate and gawky as himself -had bothered her all the week with the same demand. Hands! hands! -you would think, said she, they were all at the door wi' a bunch of -finger-rings bound to marry her right or wrong, even if they had to put -them on her nose. Of course she knew finely what they were after--she -knew that each blate wooer wanted a partner for the ball, and could only -clinch the compact with a pair of gloves; but just at present she was -not in trim for balls, and landsmen had no interest for her since her -heart was on the brine. Some of them boldly guessed at seven-and-a-halfs -without inquiry, and were dumfoundered that she would not look at them; -and one had acquired a pair of roomy white cotton ones with elastic -round the top--a kind of glove that plays a solemn part at burials, -having come upon Miss Minto when her stock of festive kids was done. -They waylaid Kate coming with her basket from the mangle--no, thanky, -she was needing no assistance; or she would find them scratching at the -window after dark; or hear them whistling, whistling, whistling--oh, -so softly!--in the close. There are women rich and nobly born who think -that they are fortunate, and yet, poor dears! they never heard the -whistling in the close. Kate's case was terrible! By day, in her walks -abroad in her new merino, not standing so much as a wink, or paying any -heed to a "Hey, Kate, what's your hurry?" she would blast them with a -flashing eye. By night, hearing their signals, she showed them what she -thought of them by putting to the shutters. "Dir-r-rt!" was what she -called them, with her nose held high and every "r" a rattle on the lug -for them--this to Bud, who could not understand the new distaste Kate -had to the other sex. "Just dirt below my feet! I think myself far, far -above them." - -One evening Mr. Dyce came in from his office and quizzed her in the -lobby. "Kate," said he, "I'm not complaining, but I wish you would have -mercy on my back door. There's not a night I have come home of late but -if I look up the close I find a lad or two trying to bite his way into -you through the door. Can you no' go out, like a good lass, and talk at -them in the Gaelic--it would serve them right! If you don't, steps will -have to be taken with a strong hand, as you say yourself. What are they -wanting? Can this--can this be love?" - -She ran to the sanctuary of the kitchen, plumped in a chair, and was -swept away in a storm of laughter and tears that frightened Bud, who -waited there a return of her aunts from the Women's Guild. "Why, Kate, -what's the matter?" she asked. - -"Your un--your un--un--uncle's blaming me for harboring all them chaps -about the door, and says it's l-l-love--oh, dear! I'm black affronted." - -"You needn't go into hysterics about a little thing like that," said -Bud. "Uncle Dan's tickled to death to see so many beaux you have, -wanting you to that ball; he said last night he had to walk between so -many of them waiting for you there in front, it was like shassaying up -the middle in the 'Haymakers'." - -"It's not hysterics, nor hersterics, either," said the maid; "and oh, I -wish I was out of here and back in the isle of Colonsay!" - -Yes, Colonsay became a great place then. America, where the prospects -for domestics used to be so fascinating, had lost its glamour since Bud -had told her the servants there were as discontented as in Scotland, -and now her native isle beat paradise. She would talk by the hour, at a -washing, of its charms, of which the greatest seemed to be the absence -of public lamps and the way you heard the wind! Colonsay seemed to be -a place where folk were always happy, meeting in one another's houses, -dancing, singing, courting, marrying, getting money every now and then -from sons or wealthy cousins in Australia. Bud wondered if they never -did any work in Colonsay. Yes, yes, indeed! Kate could assure her, they -worked quite often out in Colonsay--in the winter-time. - -But one thing greatly troubled her--she must write back at once to -the only Charles, who so marvellously had come to her through Bud's -unconscious offices, and she knew she could never sustain the standard -of hand-write, spelling, and information Bud had established in her -first epistle. Her position was lamentable. It was all very well to be -the haughty madam on the street, and show herself a wise like, modest -gyurl, but what was that without the education? C. Maclean was a man of -education--he got it on the yats among the gentry, he had travelled all -the world! - -Kate's new airs, that caused such speculation in the town, were--now -let me tell you--all the result of a dash at education. She wanted to be -able to write a letter as good as Bud in a week or two, and had engaged -the child to tutor her. - -Bud never found a more delicious game in all her life, and it hurried -her convalescence, for to play it properly she must be Aunt Ailie, and -Aunt Ailie was always so strong and well. - -"Education," said Bud, who had a marvellous memory, and was now, you -will notice, Ailie Dyce, sitting on a high chair, with the maid on a -stool before her--"education is not what a lot of sillies think it is; -it isn't knowing everything. Lots try for it that way, and if they don't -die young, just when they're going to win the bursary, they grow up -horrid bores that nobody asks to picnics. You can't know everything, not -if you sit up cramming till the cows come home; and if you want to see -a brainy person jump, ask him how his mother raised her dough. Miss -Katherine MacNeill, never--never--NEVER be ashamed of not knowing a -thing, but always be ashamed of not wanting to know. That's Part One. -Don't you think you should have an exercise-book, child, and take it -down?" - -"Toots! what's my head for?" said the servant. - -"Uncle Dan says education is knowing what you don't know, and knowing -where to find it out without the other people knowing; but he says in -most places you can get the name of having it fine and good by talking -loud and pushing all your goods in front of you in a big enough barrow. -And Auntie Bell--she says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, -and the rest of it is what she skipped at Barbara Mushet's Seminary. But -I tell you, child (said the echo of Ailie Dyce), that education's just -another name for love." - -"My stars! I never knew that before," cried the servant. "I'm awful glad -about Charles!" - -"It isn't that kind of love," Bud hurriedly explained, "though it's good -enough, for that's too easy. You're only on the trail for education when -you love things so you've simply _got_ to learn as much as is good -for your health about them. Everything's sweet--oh, so sweet!--all the -different countries, and the different people, when you understand, and -the woods, and the things in them, and all the animals--'cepting maybe -pud-docks, though it's likely God made them, too, when He was kind of -careless--and the stars, and the things men did, and women--'specially -those that's dead, poor dears!--and all the books, 'cepting the stupid -ones Aunt Ailie simply _can't_ stand, though she never lets on to the -ladies who like that kind." - -"My Lord! must you love them all?" asked the maid, astonished. - -"Yes, you must, my Lord," said Bud. "You'll never know the least thing -well in this world unless you love it. It's sometimes mighty hard, I -allow. I hated the multiplication table, but now I love it--at least, I -kind of love it up to seven times nine, and then it's almost horrid, -but not so horrid as it was before I knew that I would never have got to -this place from Chicago unless a lot of men had learned the table up as -far as twelve times twelve." - -"I'm not particular about the multiplication table," said the maid, -"but I want to be truly refined, the same as you said in yon letter to -Charles. I know he'll be expecting it." - -"H-m-m-m-m!" said Bud, thoughtfully, "I s'pose I'll have to ask Auntie -Ailie about that, for I declare to goodness I don't know where you get -it, for it's not in any of the books I've seen. She says it's the One -Thing in a lady, and it grows inside you some way, like--like--like your -lungs, I guess. It's no use trying to stick it on outside with lessons -on the piano or the mandoline, and parlor talk about poetry, and -speaking mim as if you had a clothes-pin in your mouth, and couldn't say -the least wee thing funny without it was a bit you'd see in _Life and -Work_. Refinement, some folk think, is not laughing right out." - -"My stars!" said Kate. - -"And Auntie Bell says a lot think it's not knowing any Scotch language -and never taking cheese to tea." - -"I think," said Kate, "we'll never mindrefining; it's an awful bother." - -"But every lady must be refined," said Bud. "Ailie prosists in that." - -"I don't care," said the maid; "I'm not particular about being very much -of a lady--I'll maybe never have the jewelry for it--but I would like -to be a sort of lady on the Sundays, when Charles is at home. I'm not -hurryin' you, my dear, but--but when do we start the writin'?" and she -yawned in a way that said little for the interest of Professor Bud's -opening lecture. - -Whereupon Bud explained that in a systematic course of education -reading came first, and the best reading was Shakespeare, who was truly -ennobling to the human mind. She brought in Auntie Ailie's Shakespeare -and sat upon the fender, and plunged Kate at once into some queer -society at Elsinore. But, bless you, nothing came of it: Kate fell -asleep, and woke to find the fire cold and the child entranced with -Hamlet. - -"Oh, dear! it's a slow job getting your education," she said, pitifully, -"and all this time there's my dear Charles waiting for a letter!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -"I CANNA be bothered with that Shakespeare," Kate cried, hopelessly, -after many days of him; "the man's a mournin' thing! Could he not give -us something cheery, with 'Come, all ye boys!' in it, the same as the -trawlers sing in Colonsay? There was far more fun last week in the penny -_Horner_". - -So Bud dipped in the bottomless well of knowledge again and scooped up -Palgrave's _Golden Treasury_, and splashed her favorite lyrics at the -servant's feet. Kate could not stand _The Golden Treasury_ either; the -songs were nearly all so lamentable they would make a body greet. Bud -assured her on the best authority that the sweetest songs were those -that told of saddest thought, but Kate said that might be right enough -for gentry who had no real troubles of their own, but they weren't the -thing at all for working folk. What working folk required were songs -with tunes to them, and choruses that you could tramp time to with -your feet. History, too, was as little to her taste; it was all -incredible--the country could never have kept up so many kings and -queens. But she liked geography, for the map enabled her to keep an eye -on Charles as he went from port to port, where letters in her name, but -still the work of Lennox, would be waiting for him. - -The scheme of education was maintained so long because the town had -come upon its melancholy days and Bud began to feel depression, so that -playing teacher was her only joy. The strangers had gone south with the -swallows; the steamer no longer called each day to make the pavement -noisy in the afternoon with the skliff of city feet, so different from -the customary tread of tackety boots; the coachman's horn, departing, -no longer sounded down the valley like a brassy challenge from the wide, -wide world. Peace came to the burgh like a swoon, and all its days were -pensive. Folk went about their tasks reluctant, the very smoke of the -chimneys loitered lazily round the ridges where the starlings chattered, -and a haze was almost ever over the hills. When it rose, sometimes, Bud, -from her attic window, could see the road that wound through the distant -glen. The road!--the road!--ah, that began to have a meaning and a kind -of cry, and wishfully she looked at it and thought upon its other -end, where the life she had left and read about was loudly humming and -marvellous things were being done. Charles Maclean of Oronsay, -second mate, whom she loved unto destruction, now that he was writing -regularly, fairly daft himself to get such charming, curious letters -as he thought from Kate, had been adjusted by the doctor, and was once -again on the heaving main. It would be Cardiff or Fleetwood, Hamburg, -Santander, or Bilbao, whose very name is like a story, and his tarry -pen, infected by the child's example, induced to emulation, always -bravely sought to give some picture of the varied world through which -he wandered. Of noisy ports did he communicate, crowded with ships; of -streets and lofty warehouses, and places where men sang, and sometimes -of the playhouse, where the villain was a bad one and the women were so -braw. - -"What is braw?" asked Bud. - -"It's fine clothes," said Kate; "but what's fine clothes if you are not -pure in heart and have a figure?" and she surveyed with satisfaction her -own plump arms. - -But the child guessed at a wider meaning for the word as Charles used -it, and thought upon the beauteous, clever women of the plays that she -had seen herself in far Chicago, and since her vicarious lover would -have thought them braw and plainly interesting, she longed to emulate -them, at least to see them again. And oh! to see the places that he -wrote of and hear the thundering wheels and jangling bells! And there -was also Auntie Ailie's constant stimulus to thoughts and aspirations -that could meet no satisfaction in this little town. Bell dwelt -continually within the narrow walls of her immediate duty, content, like -many, thank the Lord! doing her daily turns as best she could, dreaming -of nothing nobler. Dan had ranged wider in his time and knew the world -a great deal better, and had seen so much of it was illusion, its prizes -"will-o'-the-wisp," that now his wild geese were come home. He could see -the world in the looking-glass in which he shaved, and there was much -to be amused at. But Ailie's geese were still flying far across the -firmament, knowing no place of rest. The child had bewitched her! it was -often the distant view for her now, the region unattainable; and though -apparently she had long ago surrendered to her circumstances, she now -would sometimes silently irk at her prisoning here, in sleep-town, -where we let things slide until to-morrow, while the wild birds of her -inclination flew round the habitable, wakeful world. Unwittingly--no, -not unwittingly always--she charged the child with curiosity -unsatisfiable, and secret discontent at little things and narrow, with -longings for spacious arenas and ecstatic crowded hours. To be clever, -to be brave and daring, to venture and make a glorious name--how her -face would glow and all her flesh would quiver picturing lives she would -have liked to live if only she had had the chance! How many women are -like that--silent by the hearth, seemingly placid and content as they -dam and mend and wait on the whim and call of dullards! - -Bell might be content and busy with small affairs, but she had a quick, -shrewd eye and saw the child's unrest. It brought her real distress, for -so had the roving spirit started in her brother William. Sometimes she -softly scolded Lennox, and even had contemplated turning her into some -other room from the attic that had the only window in the house from -which the high-road could be seen, but Ailie told her that would be to -make the road more interesting for the child. "And I don't know," she -added, "that it should worry us if she does indulge herself in dreams -about the great big world and its possibilities. I suppose she'll have -to take the road some day." - -"Take the road!" cried Bell, almost weeping. "Are you daft, Ailie Dyce? -What need she take the road for? There's plenty to do here, and I'm sure -she'll never be better off anywhere else. A lot of nonsense! I hope you -are not putting notions in her head; we had plenty of trouble with her -father." - -"It would break my heart to lose her, I assure you," said Aunt Ailie, -softly; "but--" and she ended with a sigh. - -"I'm sure you're content enough yourself?" said Bell; "and you're not by -any means a diffy." - -"Indeed I am content," admitted Ailie; "at least--at least I'm not -complaining. But there is a discontent that's almost holy, a roving -mood that's the salvation of the race. There were, you mind, the Pilgrim -Fathers--" - -"I wish to the Lord they had bided at home!" cried Bell. "There's never -been happy homes in this Christian land since they started emigration." -And at that Miss Ailie smiled and Dan began to chuckle. - -"Does it not occur to you, Bell," said he, "that but for the Pilgrim -Fathers there would never have been Bud?" - -"I declare neither there would!" she said, smiling. "Perhaps it was -as well they went, poor things! And, of course, there must be many an -honest, decent body in America." - -"Quite a number!" said Ailie. "You would not expect this burgh to hold -them all, or even Scotland. America's glad to get the overflow." - -"Ah, you're trying to make me laugh, the pair of you, and forget my -argument," said Bell; "but I'll not be carried away this time. I'm -feared for the bairn, and that's telling you. Oh, Ailie, mind what her -mother was--poor girl! poor, dear girl! play-acting for her living, -roving from place to place, with nothing you could call a home; laughing -and greeting and posturing before lights for the diversion of the -world--" - -"We might do worse than give the world diversion," said Ailie, soberly. - -"Yes, yes, but with a painted face and all a vain profession--that is -different, is it not? I love a jovial heart like Dan's, but to make -the body just a kind of fiddle! It's only in the body we can be -ourselves--it is our only home; think of furnishing it with shams, and -lighting every room that should be private, and leaving up the blinds -that the world may look in at a penny a head! How often have I thought -of William, weeping for a living, as he had to do sometimes, no doubt, -and wondered what was left for him to do to ease his grief when Mary -died. Oh, curb the child, Ailie! curb the dear wee lassie--it's you it -all depends on; she worships you; the making of her's in your hands. -Keep her humble. Keep her from thinking of worldly glories. Teach her to -number her days that she may apply her heart unto wisdom. Her mind's too -often out of here and wandering elsewhere--it was so with William--it -was once the same with you." - -Indeed, it was no wonder that Bud's mind should wander elsewhere since -the life about her had grown so suddenly dull. In these days Wanton -Wully often let his morning sleep too long possess him, and hurrying -through the deserted dawn with his breeches scarcely on, would ring the -bell in a hasty fury half an hour behind the proper time. But a little -lateness did not matter in a town that really never woke. Men went to -work in what we call a dover--that is, half asleep; shopkeepers came -blinking drowsily down and took their shutters off and went back to -breakfast, or, I sometimes fear, to bed, and when the day was aired and -decency demanded that they should make some pretence at business they -stood by the hour at their shop doors looking at the sparrows, wagtails, -and blue-bonnets pecking in the street, or at the gulls that quarrelled -in the syver sand. Nothing doing. Two or three times a day a cart from -the country rumbled down the town breaking the Sabbath calm; and on one -memorable afternoon there came a dark Italian with an organ who must -have thought that this at last was Eldorado, so great was his reward -from a community sick of looking at one another. But otherwise nothing -doing, not a thing! As in the dark of the fabled underland the men -who are blind are kings, George Jordon, the silly man, who never had a -purpose, and carried about with him an enviable eternal dream, seemed -in that listless world the only wideawake, for he at least kept moving, -slouching somewhere, sure there was work for him to do if only he could -get at it. Bairns dawdled to the schools, dogs slept in the track where -once was summer traffic, Kate, melancholy, billowed from the kitchen -window, and into the street quite shamelessly sang sad, old Gaelic songs -which Mr. Dyce would say would have been excellent if only they were put -to music, and her voice was like a lullaby. - -One day Bud saw great bands of countless birds depart, passing above the -high-road, and standing in the withering garden heard as it were without -a breath of wind the dry rattle of dead leaves fall. It frightened her. -She came quickly in to the tea-table almost at her tears. - -"Oh, it's dre'ffle," she said. "It's Sunday all the time, without good -clothes and the gigot of mutton for dinner. I declare I want to yell." - -"Dear me!" said Miss Bell, cheerfully, "I was just thinking things were -unusually lively for the time of year. There's something startling every -other day. Aggie Williams found her fine, new kitchen range too big for -the accommodation, and she has covered it with cretonne and made it into -a whatnot for her parlor. Then there's the cantata; I hear the U. P. -choir is going to start to practise it whenever Duncan Gill next door to -the hall is gone--he's near his end, poor body! they're waiting on, but -he says he could never die a Christian death if he had to listen to them -at their operatics through the wall." - -"It's not a bit like this in Chicago," said the child, and her uncle -chuckled. - -"I dare say not," said he. "What a pity for Chicago! Are you wearying -for Chicago, lassie?" - -"No," said Bud, deliberating. "It was pretty smelly, but my! I wish to -goodness folk here had a little git-up-and-go to them!" - -"Indeed, I dare say it's not a bit like Chicago," admitted Auntie Bell. -"It pleases myself that it's just like Bonnie Scotland." - -"It's not a bit like Scotland, either," said Bud. "I calc'lated Scotland -'d be like a story-book all the time, chock-full of men-at-arms and -Covenanters, and things father used to talk about, Sundays, when he was -kind of mopish and wanted to make me Scotch. I've searched the woods for -Covenanters and can't find one; they must have taken to the tall timber -and I haven't seen any men-at-arms since I landed, 'cepting the empty -ones up in the castle lobby." - -"What _did_ you think Scotland would be like, dear?" asked Ailie. - -"Between me and Winifred Wallace, we figured it would be a great place -for chivalry and constant trouble among the crowned heads. I expected -there'd be a lot of 'battles long ago,' same as in the 'Highland Reaper' -in the sweet, sweet G. T." - -"What's G. T.?" asked Auntie Bell; and Bud laughed slyly and looked at -her smiling Auntie Ailie, and said: "We know, Auntie Ailie, don't we? -It's GRAND! And if you want to know, Auntie Bell, it's just Mr. -Lovely Palgrave's _Golden Treasury. That's_ a book, my Lord! I expected -there'd be battles every day--" - -"What a blood-thirsty child!" said Miss Ailie. - -"I don't mean truly, truly battles," Bud hurried to explain, "but the -kind that's the same as a sound of revelry off--no blood, but just a -lot of bang. But I s'pose battles are gone out, like iron suits. Then -I thought there'd be almost nothing but cataracts and ravines -and--and--mountain passes, and here and there a right smart Alick in -short trunks and a feather in his hat winding a hunting-horn. I used to -think, when I was a little, wee, silly whitterick, that you wound a horn -every Saturday night with a key just like a clock; but I've known for -years and years it's just blowing. The way father said, and from the -things I read, I calc'lated all the folk in Scotland'd hate one another -like poison, and start a clan, and go out chasing all the other clans -with direful slogans and bagpipes skirling wildly in the genial breeze. -And the place would be crowded with lovelorn maidens--that kind with the -starched millstones round their necks like Queen Mary always wore. My, -it must have been rough on dear old Mary when she fell asleep in church! -But it's not a bit like that; it's only like Scotland when I'm in bed, -and the wind is loud, and I hear the geese. Then I think of the trees -all standing out in the dark and wet, and the hills, too, the way -they've done for years and years, and the big, lonely places with nobody -in them, not a light even; and I get the croodles and the creeps, for -that's Scotland, full of bogies. I think Scotland's stone-dead." - -"It's no more dead than you are yourself," said Miss Bell, determined -ever to uphold her native land. "The cleverest people in the world come -from Scotland." - -"So father used to say; but Jim, he said he guessed the cleverer they -were the quicker they came. I'm not a bit surprised they make a dash -from home when they feel so dead and mopish and think of things and see -that road." - -"Road?" said Uncle Dan. "What road?" - -"My road," said the child. "The one I see from my window--oh, how it -rises and rises and winds and winds, and it just _shrieks_ on you to -come right along and try." - -"Try what?" asked her uncle, curiously. - -"I dunno," said Bud, thinking hard; "Auntie Ailie knows, and I 'spect -Auntie Bell knows, too. I can't tell what it is, but I fairly tickle -to take a walk along. Other times I fee I'd be mighty afraid to go, but -Auntie Ailie says you should always do the things you're afraid to do, -for they're most always the only things worth doing." - -Mr. Dyce, scratching the ear of Footles, who begged at the side of his -chair, looked over the rims of his glasses and scrutinized the child. - -"All roads," said he, "as you'll find a little later, come to the same -dead end, and most of us, though we think we're picking our way, are -all the time at the mercy of the School-master, like Geordie Jordon. -The only thing that's plain in the present issue is that we're not brisk -enough here for Young America. What do you think we should do to make -things lively?" - -"Hustle," said Bud. "Why, nobody here moves faster 'n a funeral, and -they ought to gallop if they want to keep up with the band." - -"I'm not in a hurry myself," said her uncle, smiling. "Maybe that's -because I think I'm all the band there is myself. But if you want to -introduce the Chicago system you should start with Mrs. Wright's Italian -warehouse down the street--the poor body's losing money trying to run -her shop on philanthropic principles." - -Bud thought hard a while. "Phil--phil--What's a philanthropic -principle?" she asked. - -"It's a principle on which you don't expect much interest except in -another world," said her uncle. "The widow's what they call a Pilgrim -hereabouts; if the meek were to inherit the earth in a literal sense, -she would long ago have owned the whole county." - -"A truly Christian woman!" said Miss Bell. - -"I'm not denying it," said Mr. Dyce; "but even a Christian woman should -think sometimes of the claims of her creditors, and between ourselves it -takes me all my time to keep the wholesale merchants from hauling her to -court." - -"How do you manage it?" asked Ailie, with a twinkle in her eyes; but Dan -made no reply--he coughed and cleaned his spectacles. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -THERE was joy a few days later in the Dyces' kitchen when Peter the -postman, with a snort that showed the bitterness of his feelings, passed -through the window a parcel for Kate that on the face of it had come -from foreign parts. "I don't ken who it's from, and ye're no' to think -I'm askin'," said he; "but the stamps alone for that thing must have -cost a bonny penny." - -"Did they, indeed!" said Kate, with a toss of her head. "Ye'll be glad -to ken he can well afford it!" and she sniffed at the parcel redolent of -perfumes strange and strong. - -"Ye needna snap the nose off me," said the postman; "I only made the -remark. What--what does the fellow, do?" - -"He's a traveller for railway tunnels," retorted the maid of Colonsay, -and shut the window with a bang, to tear open the parcel in a frenzy of -expectation and find a bottle of Genuine Riga Balsam--wonderful cure for -sailors' wounds!--another of Florida Water, and a silver locket, with -a note from Charles saying the poem she had sent was truly grand, -and wishing her many happy returns of the day. Like many of Charles's -letters now, its meaning was, in parts, beyond her, until she could -learn from Bud the nature of the one to which it was an answer--for Bud -was so far enraptured with the wandering sailor that she sometimes sent -him letters which the servant never saw. That day the breakfast service -smelled of Florida Water, for Kate had drenched herself with the -perfume, and Miss Bell was sure she had washed the dishes again with -scented soap, as was the habit of the girl when first she came from -Colonsay and thought that nothing but Brown Windsor would do justice to -Grandma Buntain's tea-set used on Sundays. But Bud could see the signs -of Shipping Intelligence, and as soon as she could she hastened to the -kitchen, for it was Saturday, and on Saturdays there were no lessons in -the Dyce Academy. Oh, how she and Kate fondled the bottles lovingly, -and sniffed passionately at their contents, and took turn about of the -locket! The maid had but one regret, that she had no immediate use for -Riga Balsam; but Bud was more devoted than that--she gently pricked the -palm of her hand with a pin and applied the Genuine. "Oh, how he must -love me--us, I mean!" she exclaimed, and eagerly devoured his letter. - -"What did you say to him in the last?" asked Kate. "He's talking there -about a poetry, and happy returns of the day." - -Bud confessed she had made a poem for him from his beloved Kate, and had -reckoned on fetching a gift of candy by telling him her birthday was on -Monday. "It really I'd just as lief have the balsam," said she; "it's -perfectly lovely; how it nips!" - -"It's not my birthday at all," said Kate. "My birthday's always on -the second Sunday in September. I was born about the same time as Lady -Anne--either a fortnight before or a fortnight after; I forget mysel' -completely which it was, and I dare say so does she." - -"No, but Monday's my birthday, right enough," said Bud, "and seeing -that we're sort of loving him in company, I s'posed it would be all the -same." - -"So it is; I'm not complainin'," said the maid. "And now we'll have to -send him something back. What would you recommend?" - -They considered many gifts appropriate for a sailor--sou'westers, -Bible-markers, woollen comforters, and paper-knives, scarf-pins, gloves, -and ties. Bud was sure that nothing would delight him like a book about -a desert island, but Kate said no, a pipe was just the very ticket--a -wooden pipe with silver mountings; the very one to suit was in the -window of Mrs. Wright's Italian warehouse. - -"What's an Italian warehouse?" asked the child. "You have me there," -said Kate, "unless, maybe, her husband was Italian before he went and -died on her. 'Italian Warehouse' is the only thing that's on her sign. -She sells a thing for almost any price you like to offer, because the -Bible says it's not the thing at all to argy-bargy." - -"_I_ know," said Bud; "it's what we call running a business on--on--on -philanthropic principles. I'd love to see a body do it. I'll run out and -buy the pipe from Mrs. Wright, Kate." - -She departed on her errand down the town, at the other side of the -church; and the hours of the forenoon passed, and dinner-time was almost -come, and still there was no sign of her returning. Kate would have lost -her patience and gone to seek for her, but found so much to interest her -at the window that she quite forgot her messenger. Something out of the -ordinary was happening on the other side of the church. Wanton Wully -knew what it was, but of course he was not telling, for he was out -as public crier, rousing the town with his hand-bell, and shouting -"Notice!" with an air that promised some tremendous tidings; but beyond -mysterious words like "bed-rock prices," which he mumbled from a paper -in his hand, there was nothing to show this proclamation differed from -the common ones regarding herring at the quay or a sale of delft down-by -at John Turner's corner. "What are ye crying?" they asked him, but being -a man with the belief that he had a voice as clear as a concert singer -he would not condescend to tell them. Only when some one looked across -his shoulder and read the paper for himself was it found that a sale -described as "Revolutionary" was taking place at the Italian warehouse. -Half the town at once went to see what the decent body was up to. Kate -saw them hurrying down, and when they came back they were laughing. -"What's the ploy?" she asked a passer-by. - -"A sale at the Pilgrim weedow's," she was told. "She's put past her -_Spurgeon's Sermons_ and got a book aboot business, and she's learnin' -the way to keep an Italian warehouse in Scotch." - -Kate would have been down the town at once to see this marvel for -herself, but her pot was on the boil, and here was the mistress coming -down the stair crying, "Lennox, Lennox!" The maid's heart sank. She had -forgotten Lennox, and how could she explain her absence to a lady so -particular? But for the moment she was spared the explanation, for -the bark of Footles filled the street and Mr. Dyce came into the lobby -laughing. - -"You're very joco!" said his sister, helping him off with his coat. -"What are you laughing at?" - -"The drollest thing imaginable," said he. "I have just left Captain -Consequence in a terrible rage about a letter that a boy has brought to -him from Mrs. Wright. He's one of the folk who brag of paying as they go -but never make a start. It seems he's as much in debt to her as to most -of the other merchants in the place, but wasn't losing any sleep about -it, for she's such a softy. This letter has given him a start. He showed -it to me, with the notion that it was a libel or a threat that might be -actionable, but I assured him I couldn't have written one more to the -point myself. It said that unless he paid at once something would be apt -to happen that would create him the utmost astonishment." - -"Mercy on us! That's not very like the widow; she must be getting -desperate." - -"It was the wording of the thing abused me," said Mr. Dyce, walking into -the parlor still chuckling--"'something will be apt to happen that will -create you the utmost astonishment'--it suggests such awful -possibilities. And it's going to serve its purpose, too, for the -Captain's off to pay her, sure it means a scandal." Kate took the chance -to rush round the kirk in search of her messenger. "This way for the big -bargains!" cried some lads coming back from the Italian warehouse, or, -"Hey! ye've missed a step"--which shows how funny we can be in the -smallest burgh towns--but Kate said nothing only "trash!" to herself in -indignation, and tried by holding in her breath to keep from getting -red. - -The shop of the Pilgrim widow suffered from its signboard, that was "far -too big for its job, like the sweep that stuck in my granny's chimney," -as Mr. Dyce said. Once the sign had been P. & A.'s, but P. & A's good -lady tired of hearing her husband nicknamed the Italian, and it went -back to the painter, who partly paid with it a debt to the Pilgrim -widow, who long since rued her acquisition. She felt in her soul it was -a worldly vanity--that a signboard less obtrusive on the public eye -would more befit herself and her two meek little windows, where -fly-papers, fancy goods, sweetmeats, cigarettes, country eggs, and -cordial invitations to the Pilgrims' Mission Bethel every Friday (D. -V.), eight o'clock, kept one another incongruous and dusty company. A -decent, pious widow, but ah! so wanting any saving sense of guile. The -Pilgrim Mission was the thing she really lived for, and her shop was the -cross she bore. But to-day it was scarcely recognizable: the windows had -been swept of their stale contents', and one was filled with piles of -rosy apples, the other with nuts that poured in a tempting cataract from -a cask upset with an air of reckless prodigality. A large, hand-lettered -bill was in each window; one said: - -"HALLOWE'EN! ARISE AND SHINE!" and the other: - -"DO IT NOW!" - -what was to be done being left to the imagination. All forenoon there -had been a steady flow of customers, who came out of the shop with more -than nuts or apples, greatly amazed at the change in the Pilgrim widow, -who was cracking up her goods like any common sinner. Behind the railed -and curtained box, in which she was supposed to keep her books and pray -for the whole community, there seemed to be some secret stimulating -influence, for when bad payers tried to-day to get a thing on credit, -and she was on the point of yielding, she would dart into the box and -out again as hard as steel, insisting that at every Revolutionary Sale -the terms were cash. She was giving bargains, but at her own price, -never at her customers', as it used to be. The Health Saline--extract -of the finest fruit, Cooling, Refreshing, Invigorating, Tonic (though -indeed it looked like an old friend from Rochelle with a dash of sugar -and tartaric)--was down a ha'penny, to less than what it cost, according -to another hand-done bill upon the counter. When they asked her how she -could afford to sell the stuff below its cost, she seemed ashamed and -startled, till she had a moment in behind the curtains, and then she -told them it was all because of the large turn-over; she could -not afford to sell the saline under cost if she did not sell it in -tremendous quantities. - -Did they want Ward's Matchless Polishing Paste?--alas! (after a dash -behind the curtains) she was completely out of it. Of late it had been -in such great demand that she got tired of ordering it every other week -wholesale. Yes, she was out of Ward's, but (again the curtained box) -what about this wonderful line in calf-foot jelly, highly praised by -the--by the connoisseurs? What were connoisseurs? A connoisseur (again -on reference behind the curtains) was one of those wealthy men who could -swallow anything. - -"I'll tell ye what it is," said the tailor, "I see't at last! She's -got a book in there; I've seen't before--_The Way to Conduct a Retail -Business_--and when she runs behind, it's to see what she should say to -the customers. That's where she got the notions for her window and the -'Do it Now!'" - -But he was wrong--completely wrong, for when Kate came into the shop -with "Have you seen Miss Lennox, Mrs. Wright? I sent her here a message -hours ago," Lennox herself came from the curtained box saying, "Hello, -Kate; saw you first! What can we do for you to day?" - -"My stars! you'll catch it!" said the maid. "They're waiting yonder on -you for your dinner." - -"I was just heading for home," said Bud, making for the door. - -"My child! my child! my angel child!" cried the Pilgrim widow, going to -kiss her, but Bud drew back. - -"Not to-day, please; I'm miles too big for kissing to-day," said she, -and marched solemnly out of the Italian warehouse. - -"What in the world were you doing away so long?" asked Kate. "Were you -carrying on at anything?" - -"I was paying for Charles's pipe," said the child, returning the money -she had got for its purchase. "That's the sweetest lady, Mrs. Wright, -but my! ain't she Baby Mine when it settles down to business? When I -wanted to buy the pipe, she was so tickled she wanted me to have it for -nothing, seeing I was Mr. Dyce's niece. She said Uncle Dan was a man of -God, who saved her more than once from bankruptcy, and it was a pretty -old pipe anyway, that had been in the window since the time she got -changed and dropped brocaded dolmans. You'd think it made her ache to -have folk come in her shop and spend money; I guess she was raised for -use in a free-soup kitchen. I said I'd take the pipe for nothing if -she'd throw in a little game with it. 'What game?' said she--oh, she's -a nice lady!--and I said I was just dying to have a try at keeping a -really really shop, and would show her Chicago way. _And you bet I did, -Kate MacNeill!_" - -She came in with the soup, but no question was put till her uncle asked -the blessing, and then, before a spoon was lifted, Auntie Bell said, -"Lassie, lassie, where in the world have you been?" - -"Keeping shop for Mrs. Wright," said Bud. - -"Tcht! tcht! you're beyond redemption," cried her aunt. "A child like -you keeping shop!" - -"A bonny pair of shopkeepers, the widow and you! which of you counted -the change?" said Uncle Dan. "Tell us all about it." - -"Well, I had the loveliest time," said Bud. "It would take till tea-time -to tell just 'zactly what a lovely day it was, but I'll hurry up and -make it a front scene. What you said, Uncle Dan, about her running a -shop on phil--on philanthropic principles made me keen to see her doing -it, and I went down a message for Kate, and offered to help. She lowed -herself she wasn't the best there was in the land at keeping shop, and -didn't seem to make much money at it, but said thank the Lord she had -the priceless boon of health. I was the first customer she'd set eyes -on all the morning, 'cept a man that wanted change for half a crown and -hadn't the half-crown with him, but said he'd pay it when he didn't see -her again, and she said she felt sure that trade was going to take a -turn. I said I thought it would turn quicker if--if--if she gave it a -push herself, and she said she dared say there was something in it, and -hoped I was in the fold. I said I was, sure, and at that she cried out -'Hallelujah!' Every other way she was 'a perfectly perfect lady; she -made goo-goo eyes at me, and skipped round doing anything I told her. -First she cleared all the old truck out of the windows, and filled them -up with nuts and apples for Hallowe'en, till they looked the way windows -never looked in Scotland in all creation before, I s'pose. 'They'll -think it kind of daft,' says she, scared-like, 'they're not like any -other windows in the place.' 'Of course not,' I said, 'and that's -the very thing to jar the eye of the passer-by.' Jim Molyneux said a -shop-window was like a play-bill, it wanted a star line--a feature--a -whoop. Then I tried to think of the 'cute things shopkeepers print in -Chicago, but couldn't remember any 'cepting 'Pants two dollars a leg, -seats free,' but the widow said she didn't sell pants. Then I thought of -some natty little cards I'd seen that said 'Arise and Shine!' and 'Do -it Now!' so I got her to print these words good and big, and put them -in the window. She wanted to know what they meant, but I said I couldn't -tell from Adam, but they would make the people wonder, and come in the -shop to find out, and then it would be up to her to sell them something -and pry the money out of them before they balked. Oh, Auntie, how I go -on!" and here Bud stopped almost breathless and a little ashamed. - -"Go on! go on!" cried Ailie. - -"Well, I got behind a curtain into a little box-office, where the widow -kept a cash-book awfully doggy-eared, and a pile of printed sermons, -and heaps of tracts about doing to others as you should be done by, and -giving to the poor and lending to the Lord. She read bits of them to me, -and said she sometimes wondered if Captain Brodie was too poor to pay -for eighteen months' tobacco, but she didn't like to press him, seeing -he had been in India and fought his country's battles. She said she felt -she must write him again for her money, but couldn't think of what to -say that would be Christian and polite and gentle, but still make him -see she wanted the money pretty bad. I said I would tell her what to say -that would suit just fine, and I dictated it--" - -"I saw the letter," said Uncle Dan, twinkling through his glasses. "It -was a work of genius--go on! go on!" - -"Then folk began to come in for nuts and apples, and asked what 'Arise -and Shine' and 'Do it Now' meant. She said they were messages from the -angel of the Lord--meaning me, I s'pose--though, goodness knows, I'm -not much of an angel, am I, Auntie Bell? Then the folk would fade away, -looking a bit rattled, and come back in a while and ask the price of -things. She'd say she wasn't sure, but she thought about a shilling, or -maybe ninepence, seeing they had a young family, and then they'd want -the stuff on credit, and she'd yammer away to them till I got wild. -When they were gone I had a good heart-to-heart talk with her, and said -phil-philanthropic principles were a great mistake in a small Italian -warehouse, and that she ought to give the customers a chance of doing -unto others as they would be done by. She made more goo-goo eyes at me, -and said I was a caution, sure enough, and perhaps I was right, for -she had never looked at it that way before. After that she spunked up -wonderful. I got her to send Mr. Wanton through the town with his bell, -saying there was everything you wanted at Mrs. Wright's at bed-rock -prices; and when people came in after that and wanted to get things for -nothing, or next to it, she'd pop into the box where I lay low, and ask -me what she was to say next, and then skip out to them as sharp as a -tack and show they needn't try to toy with her. She says she made more -money to-day by my playing shop Chicago-way than she'd make in a week -her own way. Why, I'm talking, and talking, and talking, and my soup's -stone cold!" - -"So's mine," said Uncle Dan, with a start. - -"And mine!" said Auntie Ailie, with a smile. - -"And mine too, I declare!" cried Miss Bell, with a laugh they all joined -in, till Footles raised his voice protesting. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -YES, that was one bright day in the dismal season, the day she tutored -the Pilgrim widow in the newer commerce. There was a happy night to -follow soon, and it is my grief that my pen cannot grasp the spirit of -it, so that reading you would laugh with her and whiles be eerie. 'Tis -true there was little in the thing itself as in most that at the age -of twelve impresses us for all our lives, but it met in some degree the -expectations that her father's tales of Scotland had sent home with -her. Hitherto all had been natural and wellnigh commonplace that she -had experienced, all except the folk so queer and kind and comical in -a different way from those in Chicago, the sounds she could hear as -she lay in her attic bed--the wind-call, and the honk of geese, and the -feeling of an island hopelessly remote from the new bright world that -best she knew--remote and lost, a speck on the sea far, far from great -America. The last things vaguely troubled her. For she was child enough -as yet to shiver at things not touched by daylight nor seemingly made -plain by the common-sense of man. She could laugh at the ghosts that -curdled the blood of the maid of Colonsay; and yet at times, by -an effort of the will, she could feel all Kate's terror at some -manifestation no more alarming than the cheep of mice or a death-watch -ticking in a corner cupboard. These were but crude and vulgar fears, -self-encouraged little actress terrors. It took more than the hint of -ghost or the menace of the ticking insect in the wood to wake in her -the feeling of worlds unrealized, encompassing, that she could get from -casual verses in her auntie Ailie's book of Scottish ballads, or find -o'erwhelm her of a sudden on looking from her window into the garden -bare and palid below the moon. - -This night there should be moon according to the penny almanac, and -Wanton Wully lit no lamps, but went home for a good sleep to himself, as -his saying went, and left the burgh to such illumination as should come -to it by the caprice of the clouds. It lay, the little place, for most -of the night in darkness: a mirk so measureless deep, when the shops -were shut, that the red-lit skylight windows at the upper end of -the town seemed by some miracle to lift themselves and soar into the -heavens--square, monstrous, flitting stars to the vision of Bud, as she -stood with Auntie Ailie at the door watching for Uncle Dan's return -from his office. To bring the soaring windows back to their natural -situation, she had to stand a little way inside the lobby and establish -their customary place against the darkness by the lintel of the door. - -From the other side of the church came a sound of dull, monotonous -drumming--no cheerful, rhythmic beat like the drumming of John Taggart, -but a mournful thumping, fitful in flaws of the bland night wind. - -"What's that, Auntie?" she asked. - -"The guizards," said Miss Ailie, looking down upon her in the lobby -light with a smile she could not see. "Did you never hear of the -guizards, Bud?" - -Bud had never heard of the guizards; that was one thing, surely, her -father had forgotten. She had heard of Hallowe'en, she said, when -further questioned. Wasn't it the night for ducking into tubs for -apples? The Pilgrim widow had told her Hallowe'en was coming, and it was -for Hallowe'en she had sold so many nuts and apples; but the widow said -she felt ashamed to do it, for Hallowe'en was not approved of by -the Mission, being idolatrous and gay. "Is it very gay?" asked Bud, -anxiously. - -"So I used to think it," said her aunt. - -"Then I s'pose it must be wicked," said the child, regretfully. "I'd -have expected you'd have Hallowe'en right here in the house if it hadn't -been very bad. That widow did me a lot of good, showing me what a heap -of happy things are full of sin. She knew them all! I s'pose she got -them in the tracts. Yes, she did me a lot of good; I--I almost wish I -hadn't met that widow." - -"Do you feel wicked when you're gay?" asked Miss Ailie. - -"Mercy on us! not a mite!" said Bud. "I feel plumb full of goodness when -I'm gay; but that's my youth and innocence. The widow says it is, and I -guess what she says goes." - -"Still, do you know, my dear, I'd risk a little gayety now and then," -said Auntie Ailie. "Who knows? The widow, though a worthy lady, is what -in Scotland we call an old wife, and it's generally admitted that old -wives of either sex have no monopoly of wisdom. If you're wanting pious -guidance, Bud, I don't know where you'll get it better than from Auntie -Bell; and she fairly dotes on Hallowe'en and the guizards. By-and-by -you'll see the guizards, and--and--well, just wait and we'll find what -else is to be seen. I do wish your uncle Dan would hurry." - -The street was quite deserted, but did not show its vacancy until the -clouds for a moment drifted off the moon that rolled behind the steeple. -Then the long, gray stretch of tenements came out unreal and pale on -the other side of the street, their eaves and chimneys throwing inky -shadows, their red-lit windows growing of a sudden wan. Over them hung -the ponderous kirk, the master shadow, and all--the white-harled walls, -the orange windows, the glittering cold, and empty street--seemed like -the vision of a dream. Then the clouds wrapped up the moon again, and -the black was the black of Erebus. But as it fell, the dull drums seemed -to come nearer, and from the head of the street, the windy corner -where Uncle Dan had his office, small moons came, purple and golden, -fantastically carved. They ran from house to house, and grouped in -galaxies, or singly fell apart, swinging and giddy orbs. For a moment -Bud looked at them bewildered, then gave a happy scream. - -"The lanterns! the lanterns! Look at the lanterns, Auntie. Is that -Hallowe'en?" - -"That's part of it, at least," said her aunt; "these are the guizards, -with their turnip lanterns; they're going round the houses singing; -by-and-by we'll hear them." - -"My! I wish to goodness I had a lantern like that. To swing a lantern -like that I'd feel like being a lighthouse or the statue of Liberty at -New York. I'd rather have a turnip lantern than a raft of dolls." - -"Did, you never have one?" - -"No," said Bud, sorrowfully. "You have no idea what a poor mean place -Chicago is--not a thing but common electric light!" And Miss Ailie -smiled gleefully to herself again like one possessed of a lovely secret. -"I wish that brother of mine would come quickly." she said, and at -the moment he came out of the darkness to them with a comical look of -embarrassment in his face and in his hand an unlighted turnip lantern. - -"Here, Bud," said he, "take this quickly, before some silly body sees -me with it and thinks it's for myself. I have the name, I know, of being -daft enough already, and if it gets about the country that Daniel Dyce -was going round at Hallowe'en with a turnip lantern, they would think -he had lost his head in a double sense, and it would be very bad for -business." - -"Uncle!" cried the child, in ecstasy, "you're the loveliest, sweetest -man in the whole wide world." - -"I dare say," said he. "I have been much admired when I was younger. But -in this case don't blame me. I wash my hands of the responsibility. I -got my orders for that thing from your auntie Bell." - -"My! ain't it cute! Did you make it?" asked Bud, surveying the rudely -carved exterior with delight, and her uncle, laughing, put on his -glasses to look at it himself. - -"No," said he, "though I've made a few of them in my time. All that's -needed is a knife or a mussel-shell, and a dose of Gregory's Mixture in -the morning." - -"What's the Gregory's Mixture for?" - -"In making a turnip lantern you eat the whole inside of it," said Mr. -Dyce. "Perhaps I might have made this one myself if it wasn't that I -know I would hate to see the inside wasted, and still I have mind of the -Gregory. I bought the lantern from a boy at the head of the street who -was looking very gash and ill, and seemed suspiciously glad to get quit -of it. I'm thinking that his Gregory's nearly due." - -Bud hardly listened, she was so taken up with her gift. She pounced -at the handle of the kitchen door and found it snibbed within. "Kate! -Kate!" she cried; "let me in to light my lantern." - -Kate was to be heard moving within, and there was a curious sound of -giggling, but no answer. - -"Open the door--quick, quick!" cried Bud, again, and this time Auntie -Bell, inside, said: - -"Yes, open, Kate; I think we're ready." - -The door of the kitchen opened, and before the eyes of the child was a -spectacle the more amazing and delightful since all day they had taken -pains to keep the preparations secret. A dozen children, who had been -smuggled in by the back door in the close, were seated round a tub of -water with floating apples, and they were waiting her presence to begin -their fun. - -Oh, how happy was that hour! But not just then came the thrill of which -I'm thinking. It was not the laughter and the ducking in the tub, the -discoveries of rings and buttons, thimbles, and scuddy little dolls and -silver pieces hidden in the mound of champed potatoes Kate had cooked; -nor the supper that followed, nor the mating of nuts on the fire-ribs -that gave the eerie flavor of old time and the book of ballads. She -liked them all; her transport surely was completed when the guizards -entered, black-faced, garmented as for a masque, each thumping a -sheepskin stretched on a barrel-hoop--the thing we call a dallan. She -had never discovered before what a soul of gayety was in Auntie Bell, -demure so generally, practising sobriety, it might seem, as if she -realized her dancing days were over and it was time for her to remember -all her years. To-night Miss Bell outdid even Ailie in her merriment, -led the games in the spacious kitchen, and said such droll things, and -kept the company in such a breeze that Ailie cried at last, "I think, -Bell, that you're fey!" - -"Indeed, and I dare say you're right," admitted Bell, sinking in a chair -exhausted. "At my time of life it's daft; I have not laughed so much -since I was at Barbara Mushet's seminary." - -Not these things, but the half-hour after, was what made the evening -memorable for the child. Nothing would satisfy her but that she should -light her lantern and convoy the other children home; so Kate went with -her, and the happy band went through the street, each dropping off at -her own house front till the last was gone, and then Bud and the maid -turned back. - -But Kate had a project in her mind that had been there all night since -she had burned two nuts for herself and Charles in the kitchen fire, -and found them willing to flame quite snug together. That, so far, was -satisfactory, but she wanted more assurance of the final triumph of her -love. There was, it seemed, a skilful woman up the lane who knew spells -and magic, read tea-cups and the cards, and could unravel dreams. -Notably was she good at Hallowe'en devices, and Bud must come and see -her, for it would not take a minute. - -They found their way by the light of the lantern to the spae-wife's -door, and to a poor confidant of fate and fortune surely, since she had -not found them kinder to herself, for she dwelt in a hovel where foolish -servant-girls came at night with laughter and fears to discover what the -future held for them. Bud, standing on the floor in the circle of light -from her own lantern, watched the woman drop the white of an egg in a -glass of water. In the clot of the albumen, which formed some wavering, -vague figures, she peered and found, she said, the masts of ships and a -crowded harbor, and that meant a sailor husband. - -"Was I not sure of it!" cried Kate, triumphant; but that was not the -end of the ceremony, for she was bidden to sip a little from the glass, -without swallowing, and go dumb into the night till she heard the -Christian name of a man, and _that_ was the name of the sailor husband. -Kate sipped from the glass of destiny, and passed with Bud into the -darkness of the lane. It was then there came to the child the delicious, -wild eerieness that she was beginning now to coax to her spirit whenever -she could, and feed her fancies on. The light of the lantern only wanly -illumined the lane they hurried through; so plain and gray and ancient -and dead looked the houses pressing on either hand, with windows -shuttered, that it seemed to Bud she had come by magic on a shell as -empty of life as the armor in the castle hall. By-and-by the servant, -speechless, stopped at a corner listening. No sound of human life for a -moment, but then a murmur of voices up the town, to which on an impulse -she started running, with Lennox at her heels, less quickly since the -light of her lantern must be nursed from the wind. Bud fell behind in -the race for the voice of fate; the sound of the footsteps before her -died away in the distance, and her light went out, and there she stood -alone for the first time in the dark of Scotland--Scotland where -witches still wrought spells! A terror that was sweet to think of in the -morning, whose memory she cherished all her days, seized on her, and she -knew that all the ballad book was true! One cry she gave, that sounded -shrilly up the street--it was the name of Charles, and Kate, hearing it, -gulped and came back. - -"I guessed that would fetch you," said Bud, panting. "I was so scared I -had to say it, though I s'pose it means I've lost him for a husband." - -"My stars! you are the clever one!" said the grateful maid. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -SPRING came, and its quickening; forest and shrub and flower felt -the new sap rise; she grew in the garden then, the child--in that old -Scottish garden, sheltered lownly in the neuk of the burgh walls. It -must have been because the Dyces loved so much their garden, and spent -so many hours there, that they were so sanely merry, nor let too often -or too long the Scots' forebodings quell their spirits, but got lessons -of hope from the circling of the seasons, that give us beauty and decay -in an unvarying alternation. - -"It is the time," used Ailie to say of the spring, "when a delicious -feeling steals over you of wanting to sit down and watch other people -work." - -"I'll need to have the lawn-mower sharpened; it may be needed at any -moment by the neighbors," said her brother Dan. - -They watched upspring the green spears of the daffodils, that by-and-by -should bear their flags of gold. - -And Wanton Wully, when he was not bell-ringing, or cleaning the streets, -or lounging on the quay to keep tally of ships that never came, being -at ports more propinque to the highways of the world, where folks are -making fortunes and losing much innocent diversion, wrought--as he would -call it--in the Dyce's garden. Not a great gardener, admittedly, for to -be great in versatility is of necessity to miss perfection in anything, -so that the lowest wages in the markets of the world are for the handy -man. But being handy is its own reward, carrying with it the soothing -sense of self-sufficiency, so we need not vex ourselves for Wully. As -he said himself, he "did the turn" for plain, un-ornamental gardening, -though in truth he seemed to think he did it best when sitting on his -barrow trams, smoking a thoughtful pipe and watching the glad spring -hours go by at a cost of sixpence each to the lawyer who employed him. - -Bud often joined him on the trams, and gravely listened to him, thinking -that a man who did so many different and interesting things in a day was -wise and gifted beyond ordinary. In the old and abler years he had -been 'a soldier, and, nursing flowers nowadays, his mind would oft -incongruously dwell on scenes remote and terribly different where he had -delved in foreign marl for the burial of fallen comrades. - -"Tell me Inkerman again, Mr. Wanton," Bud would say, "and I'll shoo off -the birds from the blub-flow-ers. - -"I'll do that, my dearie!" he would answer, filling another pipe, -and glad of an excuse to rest from the gentle toil of raking beds and -chasing birds that nipped the tips from peeping tulip leaves. "To the -mischief with them birds! the garden's fair polluted wi' them! God knows -what's the use o' them except for chirping, chirping--Tchoo! off wi' ye -at once, or I'll be after ye!--Ay, ay, Inkerman. It was a gey long day, -I'm tellin' ye, from a quarter past six till half-past four; slaughter, -slaughter a' the time; me wi' an awfu' hacked heel, and no' a bit o' -anything in my stomach. A nesty, saft day, wi' a smirr o' rain. We were -as black as--as black as--as--" - -"As black as the Earl o' Hell's waistcoat," Bud prompted him. "Go on! I -mind the very words." - -"I only said that the once," said Wully, shocked at her glibness in the -uptake. "And it's not a thing for the like o' you to say at all; it's -only the word o' a rowdy sodger." - -"Well, ain't I the limb! I'll not say it again," promised the child; -"you needn't look as solemn's the Last Trump. Go on, go on!" - -"As black as a ton o' coal, wi; the creesh o' the cartridges and the -poother; it was the Minie gun, ye ken. And the Rooshians would be just -ower there between the midden and the cold-frame, and we would be coming -doon on them--it micht be ower the sclates o' Rodger's hoose yonder. We -were in the Heavy Diveesion, and I kill't my first man that I kent o' -aboot where the yellow crocus is. Puir sowl! I had nae ill-will to the -man, I'll guarantee ye that; but we were baith unloaded when we met each -other, and it had to be him or me." - -He paused and firmed his mouth until the lips were lost among the -puckers gathered round them, a curious glint in his eyes. - -"Go on!" cried Bud, sucking in her breath with a horrid expectation, "ye -gie'd him--ye gie'd him--" - -"I gie'd him--I tell't ye what I gie'd him before. Will I need to say't -again?" - -"Yes," said Bud, "for that's your top note." - -"I gie'd him--I gie'd him the--the _baggonet!_" cried the gardener, with -a sudden, frightful, furious flinging of the arms, and then--oh, silly -Wully Oliver!--began to weep, or at least to show a tear. For Bud had -taught him to think of all that lay beyond that furious thrust of -the bayonet--the bright, brave life extinguished, the mother rendered -childless, or the children fatherless, in some Russian home. - -Bell, the thrifty woman, looking from the scullery window, and seeing -time sadly wasted at twelve bawbees the hour, would come out and send -the child in to her lessons, but still the orra gardener did not hurry -to his task, for he knew the way to keep Miss Dyce in an idle crack, -although she would not sit on his barrow trams. - -"A wonderfu' wean that!" would be his opening. "A perfect caution! I can -see a difference on her every day; she grows like a willow withy, and -she's losin' yon awfu' Yankee awcent she had about her when she came at -first. She speaks as bonny English noo as you or me, when she puts her -mind to't." - -"I'm afraid it would not be very difficult for her to do that, Willy," -said Miss Bell. "She could always speak in any way she wanted, and, -indeed, the first time that we heard her she was just yoursel' on a New -Year's morning, even to the hiccough. I hope you'll keep a watch on what -you say to her; the bairn picks up the things she hears so fast, and -she's so innocent, that it's hardly canny to let her listen much to -the talk of a man that's been a soldier--not that I blame the soldiers, -Willy, bless them all for Scotland, young or old!" - -"Not a word out of place from me, Miss Dyce," would he cry, emphatic. -"Only once I slippit oot a hell, and could have bit my tongue oot for -it. We heard, ye ken, a lot o' hells oot yonder roond aboot Sevastapool: -it wasna Mr. Meikle's Sunday-school. But ye needna fear that Wully -Oliver would learn ill language to a lady like the wee one. Whatever -I am that's silly when the dram is in, I hope I'm aye the perfect -gentleman." - -"Indeed, I never doubted it," said Miss Bell. "But you know yourself -we're anxious that she should be all that's gentle, nice, and clean. -When you're done raking this bed--dear me! I'm keeping you from getting -at it--it 'll be time for you to go home for dinner. Take a bundle of -rhubarb for the mistress." - -"Thanky, thanky, me'm," said Wanton Wully, "but, to tell the truth, -we're kind o' tired o' rhubarb; I'm getting it by the stone from every -bit o' grun I'm laborin' in. I wish folk were so rife wi' plooms or -strawberries." - -Bell laughed. "It's the herb of kindness," said she. "There's aye -a reason for everything in nature, and rhubarb's meant to keep our -generosity in practice." And there she would be, the foolish woman, -keeping him at the crack, the very thing he wanted, till Mr. Dyce -himself, maybe, seeing his silver hours mishandled, would come to send -his sister in, and see his gardener earned at least a little of his -wages. - -"A terrible man for the ladies, William!" was all that the lawyer had -to say. "There was some talk about doing a little to the garden, but, -hoots, man! don't let it spoil your smoke!" - -It was then you would see Wanton Wully busy. Where would Bud be then? -At her lessons? No, no, you may be sure of it; but in with Kate of -Colonsay, giving the maid the bloody tale of Inkerman. It was a far -finer and more moving story as it came from Bud than ever it was on the -lips of Wanton Wully. From him she only got the fling of the arms that -drove the bayonet home, the lips pursed up as if they were gathered by a -string, the fire of the moment, and the broad Scots tongue he spoke in. -To what he gave she added fancy and the drama. - -"As black as a ton o' coal, wi' the creesh o' the cartridges;... either -him or me;... I gie'd him,... I gie'd him;... I shut my eyes, and said, -'O God, Thy pardon!' and gie'd him the _baggonet!_" - -Kate's apron at that would fly up to cover her eyes, for she saw before -her all the bloody spectacle. "I'm that glad," she would say, "that -my lad's a sailor. I couldna sleep one iota at night thinkin' of their -baggonets if he was a man o' war. And that puts me in mind, my dear, -it's more than a week since we sent the chap a letter. Have you time -the now to sit and write a scrape to Hamburg on the Elbow--imports iron -ore?" - -And Bud had time, and sit she would and write a lovely letter to Charles -Maclean of Oronsay. She told him that her heart was sore, but she must -confess that she had one time plighted her troth to a Russian army -officer, who died, alas! on the bloody field. His last words, as his -life-blood slowly ebbed away, were: - -"What _would_ be the last words of a Russian officer who loved you?" -asked Bud, biting her pen in her perplexity. - -"Toots! anything--'my best respects to Kate,'" said the maid, who had -learned by this time that the letters Charles liked the most were the -ones where Bud most freely used imagination. - -"I don't believe it would," said Bud. "It'd sound far too calm for a -man that's busy dying." But she put it down all the same, feeling it was -only fair that Kate should have some say in the letters written in her -name. - -That was the day they gave him a hint that a captain was wanted on the -yacht of Lady Anne. - -And still Kate's education made some progress, as you may see from what -she knew of Hamburg, though she was not yet the length of writing -her own love-letters. She would sit at times at night for hours quite -docile, knitting in the kitchen, listening to the reading of the child. -A score of books had been tried on her by Aunt Ailie's counsel (for she -was in the secret of this Lower Dyce Academy), but none there was -that hit the pupil's fancy half so much as her own old favorite penny -novelettes till they came one happy day to _The Pickwick Papers_. Kate -grew very fond of _The Pickwick Papers_. The fun of them being in a -language quite unknown in Colonsay was almost all beyond her. But "that -poor Mr. Puckwuck!" she would cry at each untoward accident; "oh, the -poor wee man!" and the folk were as real to her as if she had known them -all in Colonsay. If Dickens could have known the curious sentiments -his wandering hero roused in this Highland servant mind he would have -greatly wondered. - -While Bud was tutoring Kate that spring, Miss Bell was thinking to take -up the training of Bud herself in wiselike housekeeping. The child grew -as fast in her mind as in her body; each day she seemed to drift farther -away from the hearth and into the world from which her auntie would -preserve her--into the world whose doors books widely opened, Auntie -Ailie's magic key of sympathy, and the genius of herself. So Bell -determined there and then to coax her into the gentle arts of -domesticity that ever had had a fascination for herself. She went about -it, oh, so cunningly! letting Bud play at the making of beds and the -dusting of the stair-rails and the parlor beltings--the curly-wurly -places, as she called them, full of quirks and holes and corners that -the unelect like Kate of Colonsay will always treat perfunctorily in a -general wipe that only drives the dirt the farther in. Bud missed -not the tiniest corner nor the deepest nook; whatever she did, she did -fastidiously, much to the joy of her aunt, who was sure it was a sign -she was meant by the Lord for a proper housewife. But the child soon -tired of making beds and dusting, as she did of white-seam sewing; and -when Bell deplored this falling off, Ailie said: "You cannot expect -everybody to have the same gifts as yourself. Now that she has proved -she's fit to clean a railing properly, she's not so much to blame if she -loses interest in it. The child's a genius, Bell, and to a person of her -temperament the thing that's easily done is apt to be contemptuous; -the glory's in the triumph over difficulties, in getting on--getting -on--getting on," and Ailie's face grew warm with some internal fire. - -At that speech Bell was silent. She thought it just another of Ailie's -haiverings; but Mr. Dyce, who heard, suddenly became grave. - -"Do you think it's genius or precocity?" he asked. - -"They're very much the same thing," said Ailie. "If I could be the child -I was; if I could just remember--" She stopped herself and smiled. "What -vanity!" said she; "what conceit! If I could be the child I was, I dare -say I would be pretty commonplace, after all, and still have the same -old draigled pinnies; but I have a notion that Lennox was never meant to -make beds, dust stair-railings, or sit in a parlor listening, demure, to -gossip about the village pump and Sacrament Sunday bonnets. To do these -things are no discredit to the women who are meant to do them, and who -do them well; but we cannot all be patient Marthas. I know, because I've -honestly tried my best myself." - -"When you say that, you're laughing at me, I fear," said Bell, a little -blamefully. - -"I wasn't thinking of you," said her sister, vexed. "And if I was, and -had been laughing, I would be laughing at the very things I love; it's -only the other things that make me solemn. Your way, Bell, was always -clear before you--there you were the lucky woman; with genius, as we -have it in the child, the way's perplexed and full of dangers." - -"Is she to be let drift her own way?" - -"We got her ten years too late to prevent it," said Miss Ailie, firmly, -and looked at her brother Dan for some assistance. He had Footles on his -lap, stroking his tousy back, and he listened with twinkling eyes to -the argument, humming the air of the day, that happened to be "Robin -Tamson's Smiddy, O!" - -"You're both right and you're both wrong, as Mr. Cleland used to say if -he was taking a dram with folk that had an argument," said the lawyer; -"but I'm not so clever as Colin Cleland, for I can't ring the bell and -order in the _media sententia_. This I'll say, that to my mind the child -is lucky if she's something short of genius. If I had had a son, my -prayer would always be that he should be off and on about the ordinary. -It's lonely on the mountain-top, and genius generally seems to go with a -poor stomach or a bad lung, and pays an awful price for every ecstasy!" -"Shakespeare!" suggested Miss Ailie. - -"And Robert Burns!" cried Bell. "Except for the lass and the glass and -the randan--Poor, misguided laddie! he was like the folk he lived among. -And there was Walter Scott, the best and noblest man God ever gave to -Scotland; he was never on the mountain-top except it was to bring a lot -of people with him there." - -Mr. Dyce cleaned his glasses and chuckled. "H'm," said he, "I admit -there are exceptions. But please pass me my slippers, Bell; I fall back -on Colin Cleland--you're both right and you're both wrong." - -Miss Bell was so put about at this that she went at once to the kitchen -to start her niece on a course of cookery. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -"KATERIN!" she said, coming into the kitchen with a handful of paper -cuttings, and, hearing her, the maid's face blanched. - -"I declare I never broke an article the day!" she cried, protestingly, -well accustomed to that formal address when there had been an accident -among her crockery. - -"I wasn't charging you," said her mistress. "Dear me! it must be an -awful thing, a guilty conscience! I was thinking to give you--and -maybe Lennox, if she would not mind--a lesson or two in cookery. It's -a needful thing in a house with anything of a family. You know what men -are!" - -"Fine that!" said Kate. "They're always thinking what they'll put in -their intervals, the greedy deevils!--beg your pardon, but it's not a -swear in the Gaelic." - -"There's only one devil in any language, Kate," said Miss Bell. "'How -art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!' And I am -glad to think he is oftener on our foolish tongues than in our hearts. I -have always been going to give you a cookery-book." - -"A cookery-book!" cried the maid. "Many a time I saw one out in -Colonsay; for the minister's wife had one they called Meg Dods, that was -borrowed for every wedding. But it was never much use to us, for it -started everything with, 'Take a clean dish,' or 'Mince a remains of -chicken,' and neither of them was very handy out in the isle of -Colonsay." - -Miss Bell laid out her cuttings on the dresser--a mighty pile of recipes -for soups and stews, puddings and cakes, sweetmeats, and cordial wines -that could be made deliciously from elder and mulberry, if hereabouts we -had such fruits to make them with. She had been gathering these scraps -for many years, for the household column was her favorite part of the -paper after she was done with the bits that showed how Scotsmen up in -London were at the head of everything or did some doughty deed on the -field of war. She hoarded her cuttings as a miser hoards his notes, but -never could find the rich Sultana cake that took nine eggs when it was -wanted, but only the plain one costing about one-and-six. Sometimes -Ailie would, in mischief, offer to look through the packet for recipes -rich and rare that had been mentioned; they were certainly there (for -Bell had read them gloatingly aloud when she cut them out), but Bell -would never let her do it, always saying, "Tuts! never mind; Dan likes -this one better, and the other may be very nice in print but it's too -rich to be wholesome, and it costs a bonny penny. You can read in -the papers any day there's nothing better for the health than simple -dieting." So it was that Mr. Dyce had some monotony in his meals, but -luckily was a man who never minded that, liking simple, old friends -best in his bill of fare as in his boots and coats and personal -acquaintances. Sometimes he would quiz her about her favorite -literature, pretending a gourmet's interest for her first attempt at -something beyond the ordinary, but never relished any the less her -unvarying famous kale and simple entremets, keeping his highest praise -for her remarkable breakfasts. "I don't know whether you're improving or -whether I am getting used to it," he would say, "but that's fish! if you -please, Miss Bell." - -"Try another scone, Dan," she would urge, to hide the confusion that his -praise created. "I'm sure you're hungry." - -"No, not hungry," would he reply, "but, thank Providence, I'm -greedy--pass the plate." - -Bell was busy at her cookery lesson, making her cuttings fill the part -of the book that was still to buy, doing all she could to make Bud see -how noble was a proper crimpy paste, though her lesson was cunningly -designed to look like one for Kate alone. Her sleeves were rolled up, -and the flour was flying, when a rat-tat came to the door. They looked -up from their entrancing occupation, and there, in front, was the castle -carriage! - -Miss Bell made moan. "Mercy on us! That 'll be Lady Anne, and Ailie out, -and I cannot go to speak to anybody, for I'm such a ticket. Run to the -door, dear, and take her into the parlor, and keep her there till I am -ready. Don't forget to say 'My lady'--No, don't say 'My lady,' for -the Dyces are of old, and as good as their neighbors, but say 'Your -ladyship'--not too often, but only now and then, to let her see you know -it." - -Bud went to the door and let in Lady Anne, leading her composedly to the -parlor. - -"Aunt Ailie's out," she said, "and Aunt Bell is _such_ a ticket. But -she's coming in a minute, your--your--your--" Bud paused for a second, a -little embarrassed. - -"I forget which it was I was to say. It was either 'Your ladyship' or -'My lady.' You're not _my_ lady, really, and you're not your own, -hardly, seeing you're promised to Colonel George. Please tell me which -is right, Lady Anne." - -"Who told you it was Colonel George, my dear?" asked Lady Anne, sitting -down on the proffered chair and putting her arms around the child. - -"Oh, it's just the clash of the parish," said my little Scot, who once -was Yankee. "And everybody's so glad." - -"Are they, indeed?" said Lady Anne, blushing in her pleasure. "That is -exceedingly kind of them. I always thought our own people the nicest and -kindest in the world." - -"That's just it," said Bud, cheerfully. "Everybody everywhere is just -what one is one's self--so Aunt Ailie says; and I s'pose it's because -you're--Oh, I was going to say something about you, but I'll let you -guess. What lovely weather! I hope your papa is well? And Mr. Jones?" - -"Thank you; papa is very well, indeed," said Lady Anne. "And Mr. -Jones--" She hung upon the name with some dubiety. - -"The coachman, you know," said Bud, placidly. "He's a perfectly lovely -man, so fat and smiley. He smiles so much his face is all in gathers. So -kind to his horses, too, and waves his whip at me every time he passes. -Once he gave me a ride on the dickey; it was gorgeous. Do you often get -a ride on the dickey, Lady Anne?" - -"Never!" said Lady Anne, with a clever little sigh. "Many a time I have -wished I could get one, but they always kept me inside the carriage. I -don't seem to have had much luck all my life till--till--till lately." - -"Did Mr. Jones never take you on his knee and tell you the story of the -Welsh giants?" - -"No," said Lady Anne, solemnly shaking her head. "Then you're too big -now. What a pity! Seems to me there isn't such a much in being a big L -lady, after all. I thought you'd have everything of the very best. You -have no idea what funny ideas we had in America about dukes and lords -and ladies in the old country. Why, I expected I'd be bound to hate them -when I got here, because they'd be so proud and haughty and tyrannical. -But I don't hate them one little bit; they don't do anybody any harm -more'n if they were knockabout artistes. I suppose the queen herself 'd -not crowd a body off the sidewalk if you met her there. She'd be just as -apt to say, 'What ho! little girl, pip! pip!' and smile, for Auntie Bell -is always reading in the newspapers snappy little parts, about the nice -things the royal family do, just the same as if they weren't royal a -bit." - -"Yes, I sometimes see those touching domestic incidents," said her -ladyship. "You mean such things as the prince helping the cripple boy to -find his crutch? They make me almost cry." - -"I wouldn't wet a lash, if I were you," said Bud. "That's just the -press; like as not there's nothing behind it but the agent in advance." - -"Agent in advance?" said Lady Anne, perplexed. "Yes. He's bound to boom -the show somehow--so Jim Molyneux said, and he knew most things, did -Jim." - -"You wicked republican!" cried her ladyship, hugging the child the -closer to her. - -"I'm not a republican," protested Bud. "I'm truly Scotch, same as father -was and Auntie Bell is--that's good enough for me. I'd just _love_ to be -a my lady myself, it must be so nice and--and fairy. Why, it's about the -only fairy thing left anywhere, I guess. - -"There's nothing really to it; it's not being richer nor powerfuller nor -more tyrannical than anybody else, but it's--it's--it's--I dunno 'zactly -what it is, but it's something--it--it's romantic, that's what it is, to -be a king or a duke or a my lady. The fun of it is all inside you, like -poetry. I hope, my lady Anne, you 'preciate your privileges! You must -'preciate your privileges always, Auntie Bell says, and praise the -Lord without ceasing, and have a thankful heart." - -"I assure you I do," replied her ladyship. - -"That's right," said Bud, encouragingly. "It's simply splendid to be -a really lady with a big L without having to play it to yourself. I've -been one as Winifred Wallace quite often; with Auntie Ailie's fur jacket -and picture-hat on I'd sit and sit, and feel so composed and grand in -the rocker, and let on it was Mr. Jones's carriage, and bow sweetly to -Footles, who'd be a poor man passing to his work, and mighty proud to -have me notice him. I'd be sort of haughty but not 'bominable haughty, -cause Auntie Bell says there's nothing beats a humble and a contrite -heart. But then, you see, something would happen to spoil everything: -Kate would laugh, or Auntie Bell would pop in and cry: 'Mercy on me, -child, play-acting again! Put away that jacket instantly.' Then I'd -know I was only letting on to be a really lady; but with you it's -different--all the time you're It. Auntie Bell says so, and she knows -everything." - -"It really looks as if she did," said her ladyship, "for I've called to -see her to-day about a sailor." - -"A sailor!" Bud exclaimed, with wild surmise. "Yes. He wants to be -captain of my yacht, and he refers me to Miss Dyce, for all the world as -if he were a housemaid." - -"I'm _so_ glad," cried Bud, "for it was I who advised him to, and -I'm--I'm the referee." - -"You?" - -"Yes; it was Kate's letter, and she--and we--and I said there was a -rumor you wanted a captain, and he should apply, saying if you wanted -to know just what a clean, good, brave sailor he was you should ask Kate -MacNeill or Miss Dyce, and I'm the Miss Dyce this time, and you're--why, -you're really visiting me!" - -Lady Anne laughed. "Really, Miss Lennox," she said, "you're a wonderful -diplomatist. I must get the Earl to put you in the service. I believe -there's a pretty decent salary goes to our representative in the United -States." - -"But don't laugh at me, Lady Anne," pleaded Bud, earnestly. "I'm -dre'ffle set on having Charles off the cargo-boats, where he's thrown -away. You don't know how Kate loves him, and she hasn't seen him--not -for years and years. You know yourself what it is to be so far away -from anybody you love. He'd just fit your yacht like a glove--he's so -educated, having been on the yachts and with the gentry round the world. -He's got everything nice about him you'd look for in a sailor--big, -brown eyes, so beautiful there's only Gaelic words I don't know, but -that sound like somebody breaking glass, to describe how sweet they are. -And the whitest teeth! When he walks, he walks so straight and hits the -ground so hard you'd think he owned the land." - -"It seems to me," said Lady Anne, "that you couldn't be more -enthusiastic about your protege if you loved him yourself." - -"So I do," said Bud, with the utmost frankness. - -"But there's really nothing between us. He's meant for Kate. She's got -heaps of beaux, but he's her steady. I gave him up to her for good on -Hallowe'en, and she's so happy." - -Bell had thrown off her cooking-apron and cleaned her hands, and ran up -the stairs to see that her hair was trim, for, though she loved a lady -for the sake of Scotland's history, she someway felt in the presence of -Lady Anne the awe she had as a child for Barbara Mushet. That Ailie in -such company should be, on the other hand, so composed, and sometimes -even comical, was a marvel she never could get over. "I never feared the -face of earl or man," she would say, "but I'm scared for a titled lady." - -When she came down to the parlor the visitor was rising to go. - -"Oh, Miss Dyce," said she, "I'm so glad to see you, though my visit this -time's really to Miss Lennox. I wished to consult her about a captain -for my little yacht." - -"Miss Lennox!" exclaimed Miss Bell, shaking hands, and with a look of -apprehension at her amazing niece. - -"Yes," said Lady Anne; "she has recommended a man who seems in all -respects quite suitable, if he happens to know a little about sailing, -and I'm going to write to him to come and see me." - -At that, I must confess it, Lennox for once forgot her manners and -darted from the parlor to tell Kate the glorious news. - -"Kate, you randy!" she cried, bursting into the kitchen, "I've fixed it -up for Charles; he's to be the captain." - -The servant danced on the floor in a speechless transport, and Bud -danced, too. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -TOO slow, far too slow, passed the lengthening days. Kate was bedded by -nine to make them shorter by an hour or two, but what she took from the -foot of the day she tacked to the head of it, as Paddy in the story eked -his blanket, and she was up in the mornings long before Wanton Wully -rang the six-hours' bell. The elder Dyces--saving Ailie, who knew -all about it, hearing it from Bud in passionate whispers as they lay -together in one bed in the brightening moms of May--might think summer's -coming was what made the household glad, Kate sing like the laverock, -and Lennox so happy and so good, but it was the thought of Charles. -"You've surely taken a desperate fancy for Prince Charlie songs," said -Miss Bell to Bud and the maid of Colonsay. "Is there not another ditty -in the ballant?" and they would glance at each other guiltily, but never -let on. - -"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, brave Charlie, Come o'er -the stream, Charlie, and I'll be Maclean." - -Bud composed that one in a jiffy, sitting one day at the kitchen window, -and of all the noble Jacobite measures Kate liked it best, "it was so -clever, and so desperate like the thing!" Such a daft disease is love! -To the woman whose recollection of the mariner was got from olden -Sabbath walks 'tween churches in the windy isle, among the mossy tombs, -and to Bud, who had never seen him, but had made for herself a portrait -blent of the youth so gay and gallant Kate described, and of George -Sibley Purser, and of dark, ear-ringed men of the sea that in "The -Tempest" cry, "Heigh, my hearts! cheerily, cheerily, cheerily, my -hearts! yare, yare," the prospect of his presence was a giddy joy. - -And after all the rascal came without warning, to be for a day and a -night within sound of Kate's minstrelsy without her knowing it, for he -lodged, an ardent but uncertain man, on the other side of the garden -wall, little thinking himself the cause and object of these musical -mornings. Bud found him out--that clever one! who was surely come from -America to set all the Old World right--she found him at the launching -of the _Wave_. - -Lady Anne's yacht dozed like a hedgehog under leaves through the winter -months below the beeches on what we call the hard--on the bank of the -river under Jocka's house, where the water's brackish, and the launching -of her was always of the nature of a festival, for the Earl's men were -there, John Taggart's band, with "A Life on the Ocean Wave" between each -passage of the jar of old Tom Watson's home-made ale--not tipsy lads -but jovial, and even the children of the schools, for it happened on a -Saturday. - -Bud and Footles went with each other and the rest of the bairns, unknown -to their people, for in adventures such as these the child delighted, -and was wisely never interdicted. - -The man who directed the launch was a stranger in a foreign-looking, -soft slouch hat--Charles plain to identify in every feature, in the big, -brown, searching eyes that only Gaelic could do justice to, and his walk -so steeve and steady, his lovely beard, his tread on the hard as if he -owned the land, his voice on the deck as if he were the master of the -sea. She stood apart and watched him, fascinated, and could not leave -even when the work was done and the band was home-returning, charming -the road round the bay with "Peggy Baxter's Quickstep." He saw her -lingering, smiled on her, and beckoned on her to cross the gangway that -led to the yacht from the little jetty. - -"Well, wee lady," said he, with one big hand on her head and another on -the dog, "is this the first of my crew at a quay-head jump? Sign on at -once and I'll make a sailor of you." - -"Oh, please," said she, looking up in his face, too anxious to enter -into his humor, "are you our Kate's Charles?" - -"Kate!" said he, reflecting, with a hand in his beard, through which his -white teeth shone. "There's such a wheen of Kates here and there, and -all of them fine, fine gyurls! Still-and-on, if yours is like most of -her name that I'm acquaint with, I'm the very man for her; and my name, -indeed, is what you might be calling Charles. In fact"--in a burst of -confidence, seating himself on a water-breaker--"my Christian name is -Charles--Charlie, for short, among the gentry. You are not speaking, by -any chance, of one called Kate MacNeill?" he added, showing some red in -the tan of his countenance. - -"Of course I am," said Bud, reproachfully. "Oh, men! men! As if there -could be any other! I hope to goodness you love her same as you said -you did, and haven't been--been carrying on with any other Kates for a -diversion. I'm Lennox Dyce. Your Kate stays with me and Uncle Dan, and -Auntie Bell and Auntie Ailie, and this sweet little dog by the name of -Footles. She's so jolly! My, won't she be tickled to know you've come! -And--and how's the world, Captain Charles?" - -"The world?" he said, aback, looking at her curiously as she seated -herself beside him on a hatch. - -"Yes, the world, you know--the places you were in," with a wave of the -hand that seemed to mean the universe. - - "'Edinburgh, Leith, - Portobello, Musselburgh, _and_ Dalkeith?' - ---No, that's Kate's favorite geography lesson, 'cause she can sing it. -I mean Rotterdam and Santander and Bilbao--all the lovely places on the -map where a letter takes four days and a twopence-ha'penny stamp, and's -mighty apt to smell of rope." - -"Oh, them!" said he, with the warmth of recollection; "they're not so -bad--in fact, they're just A1. It's the like of there you see life and -spend the money." - -"Have you been in Italy?" asked Bud. "I'd love to see that old Italy-- -for the sake of Romeo and Juliet, you know, and my dear, dear Portia." - -"_I_ know," said Charles. "Allow me! Perfect beauties, all fine, fine -gyurls; but I don't think very much of dagoes. I have slept in their -sailors' homes, and never hear Italy mentioned but I feel I want to -scratch myself." - -"Dagoes!" cried Bud; "that's what Jim called them. Have you been in -America?" - -"Have I been in America? I should think I have," said he, emphatically. -"The Lakes. It's yonder you get value--two dollars a day and everywhere -respected like a gentleman. Men's not mice out yonder in America." - -"Then you maybe have been in Chicago?" cried Bud, her face filled with -a happy expectation as she pressed the dog in her arms till its fringe -mixed with her own wild curls. - -"Chicago?" said the Captain. "Allow me! Many a time. You'll maybe not -believe it, but it was there I bought this hat." - -"Oh!" cried Bud, with the tears in her eyes, and speechless for a -moment, "I--I--could just hug that hat. Won't you please let me--let me -pat it?" - -"Pat away," said Captain Charles, laughing, and took it off with the -sweep of a cavalier that was in itself a compliment. "You know yon -place--Chicago?'' he asked, as she patted his headgear fondly and -returned it to him. For a little her mind was far away from the deck -of Lady Anne's yacht, her eyes on the ripple of the tide, her nostrils -full, and her little bosom heaving. - -"You were there?" he asked again. - -"Chicago's where I lived," she said. "That was mother's place," and into -his ear she poured a sudden flood of reminiscence--of her father and -mother, and the travelling days and lodging-houses, and Mr. and Mrs. -Molyneux, and the graves in the far-off cemetery. The very thought of -them all made her again American in accent and in phrase. He listened, -understanding, feeling the vexation of that far-sundering by the sea as -only a sailor can, and clapped her on the shoulder, and looking at him -she saw that in his eyes which made her love him more than ever. "Oh, -my!" she said, bravely, "here I'm talking away to you about myself and -I'm no more account than a rabbit under these present circumstances, -Captain Charles, and all the time you're just pining to know all about -your Kate." - -The Captain tugged his beard and reddened again. "A fine, fine gyurl!" -said he. "I hope--I hope she's pretty well." - -"She's fine," said Bud, nodding her head gravely. "You bet Kate can -walk now without taking hold. Why, there's never anything wrong with her -'cepting now and then the croodles, and they're not anything lingering." - -"There was a kind of a rumor that she was at times a trifle delicate," -said Charles. "In fact, it was herself who told me, in her letters." - -Bud blushed. This was one of the few details of her correspondence on -which she and Kate had differed. It had been her idea that an invalidish -hint at intervals produced a nice and tender solicitude in the roving -sailor, and she had, at times, credited the maid with some of Mrs. -Molyneux's old complaints, a little modified and more romantic, though -Kate herself maintained that illness in a woman under eighty was looked -upon as anything but natural or interesting in Colonsay! - -"It was nothing but--but love," she said now, confronted with the -consequence of her imaginative cunning. "You know what love is, Captain -Charles! A powerfully weakening thing, though I don't think it would -hurt anybody if they wouldn't take it so much to heart." - -"I'm glad to hear it's only--only what you mention," said Charles, much -relieved. "I thought it might be something inward, and that maybe she -was working too hard at her education." - -"Oh, she's not taking her education so bad as all that," Bud assured -him. "She isn't wasting to a shadow sitting up nights with a wet towel -on her head soaking in the poets and figuring sums. All she wanted was -to be sort of middling smart, but nothing gaudy." - -Captain Charles looked sideways keenly at the child as she sat beside -him, half afraid himself of the irony he had experienced among her -countrymen, but saw it was not here. Indeed, it never was in Lennox -Dyce, for all her days she had the sweet, engaging self-unconsciousness -no training can command: frankness, fearlessness, and respect for all -her fellows--the gifts that will never fail to make the proper friends. -She talked so composedly that he was compelled to frankness himself on a -subject no money could have made him speak about to any one a week ago. - -"Between you and me and the mast," said he, "I'm feared Kate has got far -too clever for the like of me, and that's the way I have not called on -her." - -"Then you'd best look pretty spry," said Bud, pointing a monitory finger -at him, "for there's beaux all over the place that's wearing their -Sunday clothes week-days, and washing their faces night and morning, -hankering to tag on to her, and she'll maybe tire of standing out in the -cold for you. I wouldn't be skeered, Cap', if I was you; she's not too -clever for or'nary use; she's nicer than ever she was that time you used -to walk with her in Colonsay." Bud was beginning to be alarmed at the -misgivings to which her own imaginings had given rise. - -"If you saw her letters," said Charles, gloomily. "Poetry and foreign -princes. One of them great at the dancing! He kissed her hand. He -would never have ventured a thing like that if she hadn't given him -encouragement." - -"Just diversion," said Bud, consolingly. "She was only--she was only -putting by the time; and she often says she'll only marry for her own -conveniency, and the man for her is--well, _you_ know, Captain Charles." -"There was a Russian army officer," proceeded the seaman, still -suffering a jealous doubt. - -"But he's dead. He's deader 'n canned beans. Mr. Wanton gied him--gied -him the _baggonet_. There wasn't really anything in it, anyway. Kate -didn't care for him the tiniest bit, and I guess it was a great relief." - -"Then she's learning the piano," said the Captain; "that's not like a -working-gyurl. And she talked in one of her letters about sitting -on Uncle Dan's knee." Bud dropped the dog at her feet and burst -into laughter; in that instance she had certainly badly jumbled the -identities. - -"It's nothing to laugh at," said the Captain, tugging his beard. "It's -not at all becoming in a decent gyurl; and it's not like the Kate I knew -in Colonsay." Bud saw the time had come for a full confession. "Captain -Charles," she said, when she recovered herself, "it--it wasn't Kate said -that at all; it was another girl called Winifred Wallace. You see, Kate -is always so busy doing useful things--_such_ soup! and--and a-washing -every Monday, and taking her education, and the pens were all so -dev--so--so stupid, that she simply had to get some one to help her -write those letters; and that's why Winifred Wallace gave a hand and -messed things up a bit, I guess. Where the letters talked solemn sense -about the weather and the bad fishing and bits about Oronsay, and -where they told you to be sure and change your stockings when you came -down-stairs from the mast out the wet, and where they said you were the -very, very one she loved, that was Kate; but when there was a lot of -dinky talk about princes and Russian army officers and slabs of poetry, -that was just Winifred Wallace putting on lugs and showing off. No, it -wasn't all showing off; it was because she kind of loved you herself. -You see, she didn't have any beau of her own, Mr. Charles, and--and she -thought it wouldn't be depriving Kate of anything to pretend, for Kate -said there was no depravity in it." - -"Who's Winifred Wallace?" asked the surprised sailor. - -"I'm all the Winifred Wallace there is," said Bud, penitently. "It's -my poetry name--it's my other me. I can do a heap of things when I'm -Winifred I can't do when I'm plain Bud, or else I'd laugh at myself -enough to hurt, I'm so mad. Are you angry, Mr. Charles?" - -"Och! just Charles to you," said the sailor. "Never heed the honors. I'm -not angry a bit. Allow me! In fact, I'm glad to find the prince and the -piano and the poetry were all nonsense." - -"I thought that poetry pretty middling myself," admitted Bud, but in a -hesitating way that made her look very guilty. - -"The poetry," said he, quickly, "was splendid. There was nothing wrong -with it that I could see; but I'm glad it wasn't Kate's--for she's a -fine, fine gyurl, and brought up most respectable." - -"Yes," said Bud, "she's better 'n any poetry. You must feel gay because -you are going to marry her." - -"I'm not so sure of her marrying me. She maybe wouldn't have me." - -"But she can't help it!" cried Bud. "She's bound to, for the witch-lady -fixed it on Hallowe'en. Only, I hope you won't marry her for years and -years. Why, Auntie Bell'd go crazy if you took away our Kate; for good -girls ain't so easy to get nowadays as they used to be when they had -three pound ten in the half-year, and nailed their trunks down to the -floor of a new place when they got it, for fear they might be bounced. -I'd be vexed I helped do anything if you married her for a long while. -Besides, you'd be sorry yourself, for her education is not quite done; -she's only up to compound multiplication and the Tudor kings. You'd just -be sick sorry." - -"Would I?" - -"Course you would! That's love. Before one marries it's hunkydory--it's -fairy all the time--but after that it's the same old face at breakfast, -Mr. Cleland says, and simply putting up with each other. Oh, love's a -wonderful thing, Charles; it's the Great Thing; but sometimes I say, -'Give me Uncle Dan!' Promise you'll not go marrying Kate right off." - -The sailor roared with laughter. "Lord!" said he, "if I wait too long -I'll be wanting to marry yourself, for you're a dangerous gyurl." - -"But I'm never going to marry," said Bud. "I want to go right on loving -everybody, and don't yearn for any particular man tagging on to me." - -"I never heard so much about love in English all my life," said Charles, -"though it's common enough, and quite respectable in Gaelic. Do you--do -you love myself?" - -"Course I do!" said Bud, cuddling Footles. "Then," said he, firmly, "the -sooner I sign on with Kate the better, for you're a dangerous gyurl." - -So they went down the road together, planning ways of early -foregatherings with Kate, and you may be sure Bud's way was cunningest. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -WHEN Kate that afternoon was told her hour was come, and that to-morrow -she must meet her destined mariner, she fell into a chair, threw her -apron over her head, and cried and laughed horribly turn about--the -victim of hysteria that was half from fear and half from a bliss too -deep and unexpected. - -"Mercy on me!" she exclaimed. "Now he'll find out everything, and what a -stupid one I am. All my education's clean gone out of my head; I'm sure -I couldn't spell an article. I canna even mind the ninth commandment, -let alone the Reasons Annexed, and as for grammar, whether it's 'Give -the book to Bud and me,' or 'Give the book to Bud and I,' is more than -I could tell you if my very life depended on it. Oh, Lennox, now we're -going to catch it! Are you certain sure he said to-morrow?" - -Bud gazed at her disdainfully and stamped her foot. "Stop that, Kate -MacNeill!" she commanded. "You mustn't act so silly. He's as skeered of -you as you can be of him. He'd have been here Friday before the morning -milk if he didn't think you'd be the sort to back him into a corner and -ask him questions about ancient Greece and Rome. Seems to me love makes -some folk idiotic; land's sake! I'm mighty glad it always leaves me calm -as a plate of pumpkin-pie." - -"Is--is--he looking tremendously genteel and wellput-on?" asked the maid -of Colonsay, with anxious lines on her forehead. "Is he--is he as nice -as I said he was?" - -"He was everything you said--except the Gaelic. I knew he couldn't be so -bad as that sounded that you said about his eyes. I--I never saw a more -becoming man. If I had known just how noble he looked, I'd have sent -him stacks of poetry," whereat Kate moaned again, rocked herself in her -chair most piteously, and swore she could never have the impudence to -see him till she had her new frock from the dressmaker's. - -"He'll be thinking I'm refined and quite the lady," she said, "and I'm -just the same plain Kate I was in Colonsay, and him a regular captain! -It was all your fault, with your fancy letters. Oh, Lennox Dyce, I think -I hate you, just--lend me your hanky; mine's all wet with greeting." - -"If you weren't so big and temper wasn't sinful, I'd shake you!" said -Bud, producing her handkerchief. "You were just on your last legs for a -sailor, and you'd never have put a hand on one if I didn't write these -letters. And now, when the sweetest sailor in the land is brought to -your door-step, you don't 'preciate your privileges and have a grateful -heart, but turn round and yelp at me. I tell you, Kate MacNeill, sailors -are mighty scarce and sassy in a little place like this, and none too -easy picked up, and 'stead of sitting there, with a smut on your nose -and tidemarks on your eyebrows, mourning, you'd best arise and shine, or -somebody with their wits about them 'll snap him up. I'd do it myself if -it wouldn't be not honorable to you." - -"Oh, if I just had another week or two's geography!" said Kate, -dolefully. - -Bud had to laugh--she could not help herself; and the more she laughed, -the more tragic grew the servant's face. - -"Seems to me," said Bud, "that I've got to run this loving business all -along the line; you don't know the least thing about it after g-o, go. -Why, Kate, I'm telling you Charles is afraid of you more than you are of -him. He thought you'd be that educated you'd wear specs, and stand quite -stiff talking poetry all the time, and I had to tell him every dinky bit -in these letters were written by me." - -"Then that's worse!" cried the servant, more distressed than ever. "For -he'll think I canna write myself, and I can write like fury if you only -give me a decent pen and don't bother me." - -"No fears!" said Bud; "I made that all right. I said you were too busy -housekeeping, and I guess it's more a housekeeper than a school-marm -Charles needs. Anyhow, he's so much in love with you, he'd marry you if -you were a deaf-mute; he's plumb head over heels, and it's up to you, as -a sensible girl, not to conceal that you like him some yourself." - -"I'll not know what to say to him," said Kate, "and he always was so -clever; half the time I couldna understand him if it wasn't for his -eyes." - -"Well, he'll know what to say to you, I guess, if all the signs are -right. Charles is not so shy as all that--love-making is where he lives, -and he made goo-goo eyes at myself without an introduction. You'd fancy, -to hear you, he was a school inspector, and he's only just an or'nary -lover thinking of the happy days you used to have in Colonsay. If I was -you I'd not let on I was anything but what I really was; I'd be natural; -yes, that's what I'd be, for being natural's the deadliest thing below -the canopy to make folk love you. Don't pretend, but just be the same -Kate MacNeill to him you are to me. Just you listen to him, and now and -then look at him, and don't think of a darned thing--I mean don't think -of a blessed thing but how nice he is, and he'll be so pleased and so -content he'll not even ask you to spell cat." - -"Content!" cried Kate, with conviction. "Not him! Fine I ken him! He'll -want to kiss me, as sure as God's in heaven--beg your pardon." - -"I expect that's not a thing you should say to me," said Bud, blushing -deeply. - -"But I begged your pardon," said the maid. - -"I don't mean that about God in heaven, that's right--so He is, or where -would _we_ be?--what I meant was about the kissing. I'm old enough for -love, but I'm not old enough for you to be talking to me about kissing, -I guess Auntie Ailie wouldn't like to have you talk to me about a thing -like that, and Auntie Bell, she'd be furious--it's too advanced." - -"What time am I to see him?" asked Kate. - -"In the morning. If you go out to the garden just after breakfast, -and whistle, he'll look over the wall." - -"The morning!" cried the maid, aghast. "I couldn't face him in the -morning. Who ever heard of such a thing? Now you have gone away and -spoiled everything! I could hardly have all my wits about me even if it -was only gloaming." - -Bud sighed despairingly. "Oh, you don't understand, Kate," said she. -"He wanted it to be the evening, too, but I said you weren't a miserable -pair of owls, and the best time for anything is the morning. Uncle Dan -says the first half-hour in the morning is worth three hours at any -other time of the day, for when you've said your prayers, and had a good -bath, and a clean shave, and your boots new on--no slippers nor slithery -dressing-gowns--the peace of God and--and--and the assurance of strength -and righteousness descends upon you so that you--you--you can tackle -wild-cats. I feel so brash and brave myself in the morning I could -skip the hills like a goat. It's simply _got_ to be the morning, Kate -MacNeill. That's when you look your very best, if you care to take a -little trouble, and don't simply just slouch through, and I'm set on -having you see him first time over the garden wall. That's the only way -to fix the thing up romantic, seeing we haven't any balcony. You'll go -out and stand against the blossom of the cherry-tree, and hold a basket -of flowers and parsley, and when he peeks over and sees you looming -out the picture, I tell you he'll be tickled to death. That's the way -Shakespeare 'd fix it, and he knew." - -"I don't think much of Shakespeare," said Kate. "Fancy yon Igoa!" - -"Iago, you mean. Well, what about him?" - -"The wickedness of him; such a lot of lies!" - -"Pooh!" said Bud. "He was only for the effect. Of course there never -really was such a mean, wicked man as that Iago--there couldn't be--but -Shakespeare made him just so's you'd like the nice folk all the more by -thinking what they might have been if God had let Himself go." - -That night Kate was abed by eight. Vainly the town cried for her--the -cheerful passage of feet on the pavement, and a tinkler piper at the -Cross, and she knew how bright was the street, with the late-lit windows -of the shops, and how intoxicating was the atmosphere of Saturday in the -dark, but having said her Lord's Prayer in Gaelic, and "Now I lay me -down to sleep" in English, she covered her head with the blankets and -thought of the coming day with joy and apprehension, until she fell -asleep. - -In the morning Miss Bell had no sooner gone up to the making of beds, -that was her Sabbath care to save the servant-maid from too much sin, -and Ailie to her weekly reading with the invalid Duncan Gill, than Bud -flew into the kitchen to make Kate ready for her tryst. Never in this -world were breakfast dishes sooner cleaned and dried than by that eager -pair; no sooner were they done than Kate had her chest-lid up, and had -dived, head foremost, among her Sunday finery. - -"What's that?" asked Bud. "You're not going to put on glad rags, are -you?" For out there came a blue gown, fondled tenderly. - -"Of course I am," said Kate. "It's either that or my print for it, and -a print wrapper would not be the thing at all to meet--meet the Captain -in; he'll be expecting me to be truly refined." - -"I think he'd like the wrapper better," said Bud, gravely. "The blue -gown's very nice--but it's not Kate, somehow; do you know, I think it's -Auntie Ailie up to about the waist, and the banker's cook in the lacey -bits above that, and it don't make you refined a bit. It's not what you -put on that makes you refined, it's things you can't take off. You have -no idea how sweet you look in that print, Kate, with your cap and apron. -You look better in them than if you wore the latest yell of fashion. -I'd want to marry you myself if I was a captain and saw you dressed like -that; but if you had on your Sunday gown I'd--I'd bite my lip and go -home and ask advice from mother." - -Kate put past the blue gown, not very willingly, but she had learned by -now that in some things Bud had better judgment than herself. She washed -and dried her face till it shone like a polished apple, put on Bud's -choice of a cap and streamered apron, and was about to take a generous -dash of Florida Water when she found her hand restrained. - -"I'd have no scent," said Bud. "I like scent myself, some, and I just -dote on our Florida Water, but Auntie Ailie says the scent of clean -water, sun, and air, is the sweetest a body can have about one, and -any other kind's as rude as Keating's Powder." - -"He'll be expecting the Florida Water," said Kate, "seeing that it was -himself that sent it." - -"It don't amount to a hill of beans," said Bud; "you can wear our -locket, and that 'll please him." Kate went with a palpitating heart -through the scullery, out into the garden, with a basket in her hand, a -pleasing and expansive figure. Bud would have liked to watch her, but a -sense of delicacy prevented, and she stood at the kitchen window looking -resolutely into the street. On his way down the stairs Mr. Dyce was -humming the Hundredth Psalm; outside the shops were shuttered, and the -harmony of the morning hymn came from the baker's open windows. A -few folk passed in their Sunday clothes, at a deliberate pace, to -differentiate it from the secular hurry of other days. Soon the -church bell would ring for the Sabbath-school, and Bud must be ready. -Remembering it, a sense of some impiety took possession of her--worldly -trysts in back gardens on the Sabbath were not what Aunt Bell would much -approve of. Had they met yet? How did Charles look? What did Kate say? - -"Mercy on me!" cried the maid, bursting in through the scullery. "Did -you say I was to whistle?" - -"Of course," said Bud, and then looked horrified "Oh, Kate," said she, -in a whisper, "I was so keen on the vain things of this wicked world I -quite forgot it was the Lord's Day; of course you can't go whistling on -Sunday." - -"That's what I was just thinking to myself," said the maid, not very -heartily. "But I thought I would ask you. It wouldn't need to be a time, -but--but of course it would be awful wicked--forbye Miss Dyce would be -sure to hear me, and she's that particular." - -"No, you can't whistle; you daren't," said Bud. "It'd be dre'ffle -wicked. But how'd it do to throw a stone? Not a rock, you know, but -a nice little quiet wee white Sunday pebble? You might like as not be -throwing it at Rodger's cats, and that would be a work of necessity and -mercy, for these cruel cats are just death on birds." - -"But there's not a single cat there," explained the maid. - -"Never mind," said Bud. "You can heave the pebble over the wall so that -it 'll be a warning to them not to come poaching in our garden; there's -sure to be some on the other side just about to get on the wall; and if -Charles happens to be there, can you help that?" and Kate retired again. - -There was a pause, and then a sound of laughter. For ten minutes Bud -waited in an agony of curiosity, that was at last too much for her, and -she ventured to look out at the scullery window--to see Charles chasing -his adored one down the walk, between the bleaching-green and the -gooseberries. Kate was making for the sanctuary of her kitchen, her face -aflame and all her streamers flying, but was caught before she entered. - -"I told you!" said she, as she came in panting. "We hadn't said twenty -words when he wanted to kiss me." - -"Why! was that the reason you ran?" asked Bud, astonished. - -"Ye--yes," said the maid. - -"Seems to me it's not very encouraging to Charles, then." - -"Yes, but--but I wasn't running all my might," said Kate. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -TA-RAN-TA-RA! Ta-ran-ta-ra! - -The world is coming for Lennox Dyce, the greedy, greedy world, youth's -first and worst beguiler, that promises so much, but at the best has -only bubbles to give, which borrow for a moment the splendor of the -sin, then burst in the hands that grasp them--the world that will have -only our bravest and most clever bairns, and takes them all from us -one by one. I have seen them go--scores of them, boys and girls, their -foreheads high, and the sun on their faces, and never one came back. Now -and then returned to the burgh, in the course of years, a man or woman -who bore a well-known name and could recall old stories, but they were -not the same, and even if they were not disillusioned, there was that in -their flushed prosperity which ill made up for the bright young spirits -quelled. - -Ta-ran-ta-ra! Ta-ran-ta-ra! - -Yes, the world is coming, sure enough--on black and yellow wheels, with -a guard red-coated who bugles through the glen. It is coming behind -black horses, with thundering hoofs and foam-flecked harness, between -bare hills, by gurgling burms and lime-washed shepherd dwellings, or in -the shadow of the woods that simply stand where they are placed by -God and wait. It comes in a fur-collared coat--though it is autumn -weather--and in a tall silk hat, and looks amused at the harmless -country it has come to render discontent. - -Ta-ran-ta-ra! Ta-ran-ta-ra! - -Go back, world! go back, and leave the little lass among her dreams, -with hearts that love and cherish. Go back, with your false flowers -and your gems of paste. Go back, world, that for every ecstasy exacts a -pang! - -There were three passengers on the coach--the man with the fur collar -who sat on the box beside the driver, and the Misses Duff behind. I am -sorry now that once I thought to make you smile at the pigeon hens, for -to-day I'm in more Christian humor and my heart warms to them, seeing -them come safely home from their flight afar from their doo-cot, since -they it was who taught me first to make these symbols on the paper, and -at their worst they were but a little stupid, like the most of us at -times, and always with the best intent. They had been to Edinburgh; they -had been gone two weeks--their first adventure in a dozen years. Miss -Jean was happy, bringing back with her a new crochet pattern, a book of -Views, a tooth gold-filled (she was so proud and spoke of it so often -that it is not rude to mention it), and a glow of art she had got from -an afternoon tea in a picture-gallery full of works in oil. Amelia's -spoils were a phrase that lasted her for years--it was that Edinburgh -was "redolent of Robert Louis"--the boast that she had heard the great -MacCaskill preach, and got a lesson in the searing of harmless woods -with heated pokers. Such are the rewards of travel; I have come home -myself with as little for my time and money. - -But between them they had brought back something else--something to -whisper about lest the man in front should hear, and two or three -times to look at as it by in an innocent roll beside the purse in Miss -Amelia's reticule. It might have been a serpent in its coils, so timidly -they glanced in at it, and snapped the bag shut with a kind of shudder. - -"At least it's not a very large one," whispered Miss Jean, with the old -excuse of the unhappy lass who did the deadly sin. - -"No," said her sister, "it may, indeed, be called quite--quite -diminutive. The other he showed us was so horribly large and--and -vulgar, the very look of it made me almost faint. But oh! I wish we -could have dispensed with the horrid necessity. After twe--after so many -years it looks like a confession of weakness. I hope there will be no -unpleasant talk about it." - -"But you may be sure there will, Amelia Duff," said her sister. "They'll -cast up Barbara Mushet to us; she will always be the perfect teacher--" - -"The paragon of all the virtues." - -"And it is such a gossiping place!" - -"Indeed it is," said Miss Amelia. "It is always redolent of--of -scandal." - -"I wish you had never thought of it," said Miss Jean, with a sigh and a -vicious little shake of the reticule. "I am not blaming you, remember, -'Melia; if we are doing wrong the blame of it is equally between us, -except perhaps a little more for me, for I _did_ think the big one was -better value for the money. And yet it made me grue, it looked so--so -dastardly." - -"Jean," said her sister, solemnly, "if you had taken the big one I would -have marched out of the shop affronted. If it made you grue, it made me -shudder. Even with the small one, did you notice how the man looked at -us? I thought he felt ashamed to be selling such a thing; perhaps he has -a family. He said they were not very often asked for. I assure you I -felt very small, the way he said it." - -Once more they bent their douce-brown hats together over the reticule -and looked timidly in on the object of their shames and fears. -"Well, there it is, and it can't be helped," said Miss Jean at last, -despairingly. "Let us hope and trust there will not be too frequent need -for it, for, I assure you, I have neither the strength nor inclination." -She snapped the bag shut again, and, glancing up, saw the man with the -fur collar looking over his shoulder at them. - -"Strikes me, ladies," he said, "the stage-coach, as an easy mark for -the highwaymen who used to permeate these parts, must have been a pretty -merry proposition; they'd be apt to stub their toes on it if they -came sauntering up behind. John here"--with an inclination of his head -towards the driver--"tells me he's on schedule time, and I allow he's -making plenty fuss clicking his palate, but I feel I want to get out and -heave rocks at his cattle so's they'd get a better gait on 'em." - -Miss Jean was incapable of utterance; she was still too much afraid of -a stranger who, though gallantly helping them to the top of the coach -at Maryfield, could casually address herself and Miss Amelia as "dears," -thrust cigars on the guard and driver, and call them John and George at -the very first encounter. - -"We--we think this is fairly fast," Miss Amelia ventured, surprised at -her own temerity. "It's nineteen miles in two hours, and if it's not so -fast as a railway train it lets you enjoy the scenery. It is very much -admired, our scenery, it's so--it's so characteristic." - -"Sure!" said the stranger, "it's pretty tidy scenery as scenery goes, -and scenery's my forte. But I'd have thought that John here'd have all -this part of Caledonia stem and wild so much by heart he'd want to rush -it and get to where the houses are; but most the time his horses go so -slow they step on their own feet at every stride." - -"Possibly the coach is a novelty to you," suggested Miss Amelia, made -wondrous brave by two weeks' wild adventuring in Edinburgh. "I--I take -you for an American." - -"So did my wife, and she knew, for she belonged out mother's place," -said the stranger, laughing. "You've guessed right, first time. No, the -coach is no novelty to me; I've been up against a few in various places. -If I'm short of patience and want more go just at present, it's because -I'm full of a good joke on an old friend I'm going to meet at the end of -these obsequies." - -"Obsequies?" repeated Miss Amelia, with surprise, and he laughed again. - -"At the end of the trip," he explained. "This particular friend is not -expecting me, because I hadn't a post-card, hate a letter, and don't -seem to have been within shout of a telegraph-office since I left -Edinburgh this morning." - -"We have just come from Edinburgh ourselves," Miss Jean chimed in. - -"So!" said the stranger, throwing his arm over the back of his seat to -enter more comfortably into the conversation. "It's picturesque. Pretty -peaceful, too. But it's liable to be a little shy of the Thespian muse. -I didn't know more than Cooper's cow about Edinburgh when I got there -last Sunday fortnight; but I've gone perusing around a bit since; and -say, my! she's fine and old! I wasn't half a day in the city when I -found out that when it came to the real legit. Queen Mary was the -king-pin of the outfit in Edinburgh. Before I came to this country I -couldn't just place Mary; sometimes she was Bloody and sometimes she was -Bonnie, but I suppose I must have mixed her up with some no-account -English queen of the same name." - -"Edinburgh," said Miss Amelia, "is redolent of Mary Queen of Scots--and -Robert Louis." - -"It just is!" he said. "There's a little bedroom she had in the castle -yonder, no bigger than a Chicago bath-room. Why, there's hardly room for -a nightmare in it; a skittish nightmare 'd kick the transom out. There -doesn't seem to be a single dramatic line in the whole play that Mary -didn't have to herself. She was the entire cast, and the spot-light was -on her for the abduction scene, the child-widow scene, the murder, the -battle, and the last tag at Fotheringay. Three husbands and a lot of -flirtations that didn't come to anything, her portrait everywhere, and -the newspapers tracking her up like Old Sleuth from that day to this! I -guess Queen Lizzie put her feet in it when she killed Mary--for Mary's -the star-line in history, and Lizzie's mainly celebrated for spoiling a -good Prince Albert coat on Walter Raleigh." - -He spoke so fast, he used such curious words and idioms which the Misses -Duff had never heard before nor read in books, that they were sure again -he was a dreadful person. With a sudden thought of warnings to "Beware -of Pickpockets" she had seen in Edinburgh, Miss Amelia clutched so hard -at the chain of the reticule which held their purse as well as their -mystery that it broke, and the bag fell over the side of the coach and, -bursting open, scattered its contents on the road unobserved by the -guard, whose bugle at the moment was loudly flourishing for the special -delectation of a girl at work in a neighboring cornfield. - -"Hold hard, John," said the American, and before the coach had quite -stopped he was down on the highway recovering the little teacher's -property. - -The serpent had unwound its coils; it lay revealed in all its -hideousness--a teacher's tawse! - -At such a sad exposure its owners could have wept. They had never -dreamed a tawse could look so vulgar and forbidding as it looked when -thus exposed to the eye of man on the king's highway. - -"Oh, thank you so much," said Miss Jean. "It is so kind of you." - -"Exceedingly kind, courteous beyond measure--we are more than obliged -to you," cooed Miss Amelia, with a face like a sunset as she rolled the -leather up with nervous fingers. - -"Got children, ma'am," asked the American, seriously, as the coach -proceeded on its way. - -Miss Amelia Duff made the best joke of her life without meaning it. -"Twenty-seven," said she, with an air of great gratitude, and the -stranger smiled. - -"School-ma'am. Now that's good, that is; it puts me in mind of home, for -I appreciate school-ma'ams so heartily that about as soon as I got out -of the school myself I married one. I've never done throwing bouquets at -myself about it ever since, but I'm sorry for the mites she could have -been giving a good time to as well as their education, if it hadn't been -that she's so much mixed up with me. What made me ask about children was -that--that mediaeval animator. I haven't seen one for years and years, -not since old Deacon Springfield found me astray in his orchard one -night and hiking for a short-cut home. I thought they'd been abolished -by the treaty of Berlin." - -Miss Amelia thrust it hurriedly into the reticule. "We have never used -one all our life," she said, "but now we fear we have to, and, as you -see, it's quite thin, it's quite a little one." - -"So it is," said the stranger, solemnly. "It's thin, it's translucent, -you might say; but I guess the kiddies are pretty little, too, and won't -be able to make any allowance for the fact that you could have had a -larger size if you wanted. It may be light on the fingers and mighty -heavy on the feelings." - -"That's what you said," whispered Miss Amelia to her sister. - -"As moral suasion, belting don't cut ice," went on the American. "It's -generally only a safety-valve for a wrothy, grown-up person with a -temper and a child that can't hit back." - -"That's what _you_ said," whispered Miss Jean to Miss Amelia, and never -did two people look more miserably guilty. - -"What beats me," said the stranger, "is that you should have got along -without it so far and think it necessary now." - -"Perhaps--perhaps we won't use it," said Miss Jean. "Except as--as a -sort of symbol," added her sister. "We would never have dreamed of it if -the children nowadays were not so different from what they used to be." - -"I guess folks been saying that quite awhile," said the American. -"Children never were like what they used to be. I reckons old Mother -Nature spits on her hands and makes a fresh start with each baby, and -never turns out two alike. That's why it's fun to sit and watch 'em -bloom. Pretty delicate blooms, too! Don't bear much pawing; just give -them a bit of shelter when the weather's cold, a prop to lean against -if they're leggy and the wind's high, and see that the fertilizer is the -proper brand. Whether they're going to turn out like the picture on the -packet or just only weeds depends on the seedsman." - -"Oh, you _don't_ understand how rebellious they can be!" cried Miss -Amelia, with feeling. "And they haven't the old deference to their -elders that they used to have; they're growing bold and independent." - -"Depends on the elders, I suppose. Over here I think you folks think -children come into the world just to please grown-ups, and do what -they're told without any thinking. In America it's looked at the other -way about: the children are considerably more important than their -elders, and the notion don't do any harm to either, far as I can see. As -for your rebels, ma'am, I'd cherish 'em; rebellion's like a rash, it's -better out than in." - -Ta-ran-ta-ra! The bugle broke upon their conversation; the coach emerged -from the wood and dashed downhill, and, wheeling through the arches, -drew up at the inn. - -The American helped the ladies to alight, took off his hat, bade them -good-day, and turned to speak to his friend the driver, when a hand was -placed on his sleeve and a child with a dog at her feet looked up in his -face. - -"Jim! Why, Jim Molyneux!" cried Bud. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -FOR only a day or two the world (in a fur-lined collar) dwelt among us, -but momentous was its advent to the household Molyneux came visiting. It -was as if a high tide had swept the dwelling, Bell remarked, when he was -gone. You might see no outward difference; the furniture might still be -as it was, and in the same position as Miss Bell had found it when her -mother died, but all the same there was an unseen, doleful wreckage. -This unco man Molyneux changed the vital thing, the atmosphere, and the -house with the brass knocker was never to be altogether just the same -again. It is no discovery of mine that what may seem the smallest -trifles play tremendous parts in destiny. - -Even the town itself was someway altered for a little by the whim that -took the American actor to it. That he should be American, and actor, -too, foredoomed the greatness of his influence, since the combination -stood for much that was mysterious, half fearful, half sublime in our -simple notions of the larger world. To have been the first alone would -have endowed him with the charm of wonder and romance for most of us, -who at the very sight of the name America, even if it be only on a -reaper or a can of beef, have some sense of a mightiness that the roar -of London cannot rouse. But to be an actor, too! earning easy bread by -mimicry and in enormous theatres before folk that have made money--God -knows how!--and prospered. Sinful a little, we allow, for there are -doubts if the play-actor, having to paint his face and work late hours -in gaslight, finally shall obtain salvation--sinful, and yet--and yet -so queer and clever a way of making out a living! It is no wonder if we -looked on Mr. Molyneux with that regard which by cities is reserved for -shahs of a hundred wives, and royal vagabonds. Besides, consider how -the way had been prepared for him by Bud!--a child, but a child who -had shown already how wonderful must be the land that had swallowed up -clever men like William Dyce and the brother of P. &. A. MacGlashan. -Had she not, by a single object-lesson in the Pilgrim widow's warehouse, -upset the local ways of commerce, so that now, in all the shops, the -people were constantly buying things of which they had no earthly need, -and the Pilgrim widow herself was put to the weekly trouble of washing -her windows, so wasting time that might have been devoted to the -mission? Had she not shown that titled ladies were but human, after all, -and would not bite you if you cracked a joke politely with them? Had she -not put an end to all the gallivanting of the maid of Colonsay and given -her an education that made her fit to court a captain? And, finally, had -she not by force of sheer example made dumb and stammering bashfulness -in her fellow-pupils at the Sunday-school look stupid, and by her -daily walk and conversation roused in them a new spirit of inquiry -and independence that pleased their parents not so badly, and only the -little twin teachers of the Pigeons' Seminary could mistake for the kind -of rebellion that calls for the application of the tawse? - -Mr. Molyneux might have no idea of it, but he was a lion for those few -days of sequestration in what he thought the wilds. Miss Minto dressed -her windows specially for his critical eye, and on the tickets of her -autumn sales gave the name of "waist" to what had hitherto been a blouse -or a garibaldi. P. &. A. Mac-Glashan made the front of his shop like a -wharf with piles of empty packing-cases to indicate a-prosperous foreign -and colonial trade. One morning Wanton Wully rang the bell at half-past -five instead of six to prove how very wide-awake we were; and the band -paraded once with a new tune, "Off to Philadelphia," to show that when -it came to gayety we were not, though small, so very far behind New -York. - -But Jim Molyneux, going up and down the street with Lennox and the dog -for cicerones, peered from under the rim of his hat, and summed all up -to himself in the words "Rube town" and "Cobwebopolis." Bell took warmly -to him from the outset; so much was in his favor. For one thing he was -spick-and-span though not a jackanapes, with no long hair about him -as she had expected, and with an honest eye and a good complexion that -simple country ladies readily pass as the guarantee of a being clean -within. She forgave the disreputable part in him--the actor--since -William had been one and yet had taught his child her prayers, and she -was willing to overlook the American, seeing William's wife had suffered -from the same misfortune. But oh! the blow she got when she unpacked -what he called his grip and found the main thing wanting! - -"Where's your Bible, Mr. Molyneux?" she asked, solemnly. "It's not in -your portmanteau!" - -Again it was in his favor that he reddened, though the excuse he had to -make was feeble. - -"Dear me!" she said, shaking her head with a sad sort of smile. "And you -to be so regularly travelling! If I was your wife I would take you in -hand! But perhaps in America there's no need for a lamp to the feet and -a light to the path." - -It was after their first supper, for which the patriot Bell had made a -haggis, that her brother, for Moly-neux's information, said was thought -to be composed of bagpipes boiled. Bud was gone to bed in the attic, and -Molyneux was telling how he simply _had_ to come. - -"It's my first time in Scotland," said he; "and when 'The Iron Hand' -lost its clutch on old Edina's fancy, and the scenery was arrested, -I wasn't so sore about it as I might have been, since it gave me the -opportunity of coming up here to see girly-girly. I'll skiddoo from the -gang for a day or two, I said to the manager when we found ourselves -side-tracked, and he said that was all right, he'd wire me when he'd -fixed a settlement, so I skiddid, and worked my way here with the aid of -the American language, and a little Scotch--by absorption." - -"We have only one fault with your coming--that it was not sooner," said -Mr. Dyce. - -"And I'm pretty glad I came, if it was only to see what a credit Bud is -to a Scottish training. Chicago's the finest city on earth--in spots; -America's what our Fourth-of-July orators succinctly designate God's -Own, and since Joan of Arc there hasn't been any woman better or braver -than Mrs. Molyneux. But we weren't situated to give Bud a show like what -she'd get in a settled home. We did our best, but we didn't dwell, as -you might say, on Michigan Avenue, and Mrs. Molyneux's a dear, good -girl, but she isn't demonstratively domesticated. We suspected from what -Bud's father was, the healthiest place she could be was where he came -from, and though we skipped some sleep, both of us, to think of losing -her, now that I'm here and see her, I'm glad of it, for my wife and I -are pretty much on the drift most the time in England, as we were in the -United States." - -"Yours is an exacting calling, Mr. Molyneux," said Mr. Dyce. "It's very -much the same in all countries, I suppose?" - -"It's not so bad as stone-breaking nor so much of a cinch as being a -statesman," said Mr. Molyneux, cheerfully, "but a man's pretty old at -it before he gives up hope of breaking out into a very large gun. I've -still the idea myself that if I'm not likely to be a Booth or Henry -Irving, I could make a pile at management. With a millionaire at my back -for a mascot and one strong star, I fancy I could cut a pretty wide -gash through the English dramatic stage. You know our Mr. Emerson said, -'Hitch your wagon to a star.' I guess if I got a good star bridled, I'd -hitch a private parlor-car and a steam-yacht onto her before she flicked -an ear. Who wants a wagon, anyway?" - -"A wagon's fairly safe to travel in," suggested Mr. Dyce, twinkling -through his glasses. - -"So's a hearse," said Mr. Molyneux, quickly. "Nobody that ever travelled -in a hearse ever complained of getting his funny-bone jolted or his -feelings jarred, but it's a mighty slow conveyance for live folks. -That's the only thing that seems to me to be wrong with this cute little -British kingdom; it's pretty and it's what the school-marm on the coach -would call redolent of the dear, dead days beyond recall, and it's -plucky, but it keeps the brakes on most the time and don't give its star -a chance to amble. I guess it's a fine crowded and friendly country to -be bom rich in, and a pretty peaceful and lonesome country to die poor -in; but take a tenpenny car ride out from Charing Cross and you're in -Lullaby Land and the birds are building nests and carolling in your -whiskers. Life's short; it only gives a man time to wear through one -pair of eyes, two sets of teeth, and a reputation, and I want to live -every hour of it that I'm not conspicuously dead." - -They were silent in the parlor of the old house that had for generations -sheltered very different ideals, and over the town went the call of the -wild geese. The room, low-roofed, small-windowed, papered in dull green, -curtained against the noises of the street, and furnished with the -strong mahogany of Grandma Buntain, dead for sixty years, had ever to -those who knew it best a soul of peace that is not, sometimes, found in -a cathedral. They felt in it a sanctuary safe from the fret and tempest, -the alarm and disillusions of the life out-bye. In the light of the -shaded lamp hung over the table, it showed itself to its inmates in the -way our most familiar surroundings will at certain crises--in an aspect -fonder than ever it had revealed before. To Bell, resenting the spirit -of this actor's gospel, it seemed as if the room cried out against the -sacrilege; even Ailie, sharing in her heart, if less ecstatically, the -fervor for life at its busiest this stranger showed, experienced some -inharmony. To Dan it was for a moment as if he heard a man sell cuckoo -clocks by auction with a tombstone for his rostrum. - -"Mr. Molyneux," said he, "you remind me, in what you say, of Maggie -White's husband. Before he died he kept the public-house, and on winter -nights when my old friend Colin Cleland and his cronies would be sitting -in the back room with a good light, a roaring fire, and an argument -about Effectual Calling, so lively that it stopped the effectual and -profitable call for Johnny's toddy, he would come in chittering as it -were with cold, and his coat collar up on his neck, to say: 'An awfu' -nicht outside! As dark as the inside o' a cow and as cauld as charity! -They're lucky that have fires to sit by.' And he would impress them -so much with the good-fortune of their situation at the time that they -would order in another round and put off their going all the longer, -though the night outside, in truth, was no way out of the ordinary. I -feel like that about this place I was born in, and its old fashions -and its lack of hurry, when I hear you--with none of Johnny White's -stratagem--tell us, not how dark and cold is the world outside, but what -to me, at the age of fifty-five, at any rate is just as unattractive. -You'll excuse me if, in a manner of speaking, I ring the bell for -another round. Life's short, as you say, but I don't think it makes it -look any the longer to run through the hours of it instead of leisurely -daundering--if you happen to know what daunder-ing is, Mr. Molyneux--and -now and then resting on the road-side with a friend and watching the -others pass." - -"At fifty-five," said Mr. Molyneux, agreeably, "I'll perhaps think so, -too, but I can only look at it from the point of view of thirty-two. -We've all got to move, at first, Mr. Dyce. That reminds me of a little -talk I had with Bud to-day. That child's growing, Mr. Dyce--grown a heap -of ways. She's hardly a child any longer." - -"Tuts! She's nothing else!" exclaimed Miss Bell, with some misgiving. -"When I was her age I was still at my sampler in Barbara Mushet's." - -"Anyhow, she's grown. And it seems to me she's about due for a little -fresh experience. I suppose you'll be thinking of sending her to one -of those Edinburgh schools to have the last coat of shellac put on her -education?" - -"What put that in your head? Did she suggest it herself?" asked Mr. -Dyce, quickly, with his head to one side in his cross-examination -manner. - -"Well she did--but she didn't know it," said Mr. Molyneux. "I guess -about the very last thing that child'd suggest to anybody would be that -she wanted to separate herself from folk she loves so much as you; but -if there's one weakness about her it is that she can't conceal what she -thinks, and I'd not been twenty minutes in her society before I found -out she had the go-fever pretty bad. I suspect a predisposition to that -complaint, and a good heart was all her father and mother left her, and -lolling around and dwelling on the past isn't apt to be her foible. Two -or three years in the boarding-school arena would put the cap-sheaf on -the making of that girl's character, and I know, for there's my wife, -and she had only a year and a half. If she'd had longer I guess she'd -have had more sense than marry me. Bud's got almost every mortal thing -a body wants here, I suppose--love in lumps, a warm, moist soil, and all -the rest of it, but she wants to be hardened off, and for hardening off -a human flower there's nothing better than a three-course college, where -the social breeze is cooler than it is at home." - -Miss Bell turned pale--the blow had come! Dan looked at her with a -little pity, for he knew she had long been fearfully expecting it. - -"Indeed!" said she; "and I do not see the need for any such thing for -a long while yet. Do you, Ailie?" But Ailie had no answer, and that was -enough to show what she thought. - -"I know how it feels at first to think of her going away from home," -continued Mr. Molyneux, eager to be on with a business he had no great -heart for. "Bless you, I know how my wife felt about it: she cried like -the cherubim and seraphim; said it was snatching all the sunshine out of -her life; and when I said, 'Millicent Molyneux, what about hubby?' she -just said 'Scat! and threw a couple of agonized throes. Now Edinburgh's -not so very far away that you'd feel desolated if Bud went to a school -there." - -"An unhealthy hole, with haars and horrible east wind," said Miss Bell. - -"Well, it isn't the Pacific slope if it comes to climate," admitted Mr. -Molyneux. - -"No, but it's the most beautiful city in the wide world for all that," -cried Miss Bell, with such spirit that it cleared the air and made her -sister and her brother smile, for Molyneux, without his knowing it, had -touched her in the very heart's core of her national pride. - -"You're sure you are not mistaken, and that she would wish to go to -school?" asked Mr. Dyce. - -"Do you doubt it yourself?" asked Molyneux, slyly. - -"No," said Mr. Dyce, "I know it well enough, but--but I don't believe -it," and he smiled at his own paradox. - -"I have her own words for it." - -"Then she'll go!" said the lawyer, firmly, as if a load was off his -mind, and, oddly, there were no objections from his sisters. "You're not -to imagine, Mr. Molyneux," he went on, "that we have not thought of this -before. It has for months been never out of our minds, as might be seen -from the fact that we never mentioned it, being loath to take a step -that's going to make considerable difference here. It's not that we -feared we should die of ennui in her absence, for we're all philosophers -and have plenty to engage our minds as well as our activities, and -though you might think us rather rusty here, we get a good deal of fun -with ourselves. She'll go--oh yes, of course she'll go--Ailie went--and -she's no muckle the waur o't, as we say. I spent some time in the south -myself, and the only harm it seems to have done me was to make me think -too much, perhaps, of my native north. Taste's everything, Mr. Molyneux, -and you may retort if you please that I'm like the other Scotsman who -preferred his apples small and hard and sour. I think there's no divine -instruction, is there, Bell, about apples? and judgments regarding -different countries and different places in them is mostly a subjective -thing, like the estimate of beauty apart from its utility--" - -"Oh! there you are at your metapheesics, Daa," cried Miss Bell, "and -it's for me and Ailie to make ready the bairn for Edinburgh. She hasna -got a stitch that's fit to be put on." - -Molyneux stared at her; the tone displayed so little opposition to the -project; and seeing him so much surprised the three of them smiled. - -"That's us!" said Mr. Dyce. "We're dour and difficult to decide on -anything involving change, and hide from ourselves as long as we can the -need for it, but once our mind's made up it's wonderful how we hurry." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -BELL liked the creature, as I say, not a little because she saw in -him whence came some part of Bud's jocosity and most of the daftlike -language (though kind of clever, too, she must allow) in which it was -expressed. It was a different kind of jocosity from Dan's, whose fun, -she used to say, partook of the nature of rowan jelly, being tart and -sweet in such a cunning combination that it tickled every palate and -held some natural virtue of the mountain tree. The fun of Molyneux had -another flavor; it put her in mind of allspice, being foreign, having -heat as well as savor. But in each of these droll men was the main -thing, as she would aye consider it--no distrust of the Creator's -judgment, good intentions, and ability, and a readiness to be laughed -at as well as find laughter's cause in others. She liked the man, but -still-and-on was almost glad when the telegram came from Edinburgh and -he went back to join his company. It was not any lack of hospitality -made her feel relief, but the thought that now Bud's going was -determined on, there was so much to do in a house where men would only -be a bother. - -Mr. Molyneux found himself so much at home among them he was loath to -go, expressing his contempt for a mode of transit to the railway that -took two hours to nineteen miles, but Bell, defensive even of her -country's coaches, told him he was haivering--that any greater speed -than that was simply tempting Providence. He praised the Lord there was -no Providence to be tempted inside Sandy Hook, and that he knew Beef -Kings who hurled themselves across the landscape at the rate of a mile -a minute. The fact inspired no admiration in Miss Bell; she wondered at -the misguided wretches scudding like that regardless of their lives, and -them with so much money. - -Before he left he called at the Pigeons' Seminary to say good-bye to -the little teachers, and sipped tea, a British institution which he -told them was as deleterious as the High Ball of his native land. High -Ball--what was a High Ball? asked Miss Amelia, scenting a nice new -phrase, but he could only vaguely indicate that it was something made of -rye and soda. Then she understood--it was a teetotal drink men took -in clubs, a kind of barley-water. The tea gratified him less than the -confidence of the twins, who told him they had taken what he said about -the--about the shameful article so much to heart, that they had given it -for a razor-strop to one George Jordon. - -"Bully for you!" cried Mr. Molyneux, delighted. "But I'd have liked -that tawse some myself, for my wife's mighty keen on curios. She's got -a sitting-room full of Navajo things--scalpin'-knives, tomahawks, and -other brutal bric-a-brac--and an early British strap would tickle her to -death." - -Well, he was gone--the coachman's horn had scarcely ceased to echo -beyond the arches when Miss Bell had thrown herself into the task of -preparing for Bud's change in life. - -What school was she to go to in Edinburgh? Ailie knew; there was none -better than the one she had gone to herself. - -When did it open? Ailie knew: in a fortnight. What, exactly, would she -need? Ailie knew that, too: she had in the escritoire a list of things -made up already. - -"It seems to me," said Miss Bell, suspiciously, "you're desperately well -informed on all that appertains to this sudden necessity. How long has -it been in your mind?" - -"For a twelvemonth at least," answered Ailie, boldly. "How long has it -been in your own?" - -"H'm!" said Bell. "About as long, but I aye refused to harbor it; -and--and now that the thing's decided on, Ailie Dyce, I hope you're not -going to stand there arguing away about it all day long when there's so -much to do." - -Surely there was never another house so thronged, so bustling, so -feverish in anxiety as this one was for another fortnight. The upper -and the lower Dyce Academy took holiday; Kate's education stopped with a -sudden gasp at a dreadful hill called Popocatapetl, and she said she did -not care a button, since Captain Maclean (no longer Charles to any one -except himself and Bud in the more confidential moments) said the main -things needed in a sailor's wife were health, hope, and temper, and -a few good-laying hens. Miss Minto was engaged upon Bud's grandest -garments running out and in next door herself with inch-tapes over her -shoulders and a mouthful of pins, and banging up against the lawyer in -his lobby to her great distress of mind. And Bell had in the seamstress, -'Lizbeth Ann, to help her and Ailie with the rest. Mercator sulked -neglected on the wall of Mr. Dyce's study, which was strewn with -basting-threads and snippets of selvedge and lining till it looked like -a tailor's shop, and Bud and Footles played on the floor of it with -that content which neither youth nor dogs can find in chambers trim and -orderly. Even Kate was called in to help these hurried operations--they -called it the making of Bud's trousseau. In the garden birds were -calling, calling; far sweeter in the women's ears were the snip-snip -of scissors, the whir of the sewing-machine; needle-arms went back and -forth like fiddle-bows in an orchestra, and from webs of cloth and linen -came forth garments whose variety intoxicated her who was to wear -them. I'm thinking Daniel Dyce lived simply then, with rather makeshift -dinners, but I'm certain, knowing him well, he did not care, since his -share in the great adventure was to correspond with Edinburgh and pave -the way there for the young adventurer's invasion. - -He would keek in at the door on them as he passed to his office, and -Ailie would cry, "Avaunt, man! here woman reigns!" "It's a pleasant -change," he would say. "I would sooner have them rain than storm." -"You're as bad as Geordie Jordon," said Miss Bell, biting thread with -that zest that always makes me think her sex at some time must have -lived on cotton--"you're as bad as Geordie Jordon: you cannot see a -key-hole but your eye begins to water." - -If it had, indeed, been Bud's trousseau, the townfolk could not -have displayed more interest. Ladies came each day to see how things -progressed and recommend a heavier lining or another row of the -insertion. Even Lady Anne came one afternoon to see the trousseau, being -interested, as she slyly said, in such things for private reasons of her -own, and dubious about the rival claims of ivory or pure white. So she -said, but she came, no doubt, to assure Miss Lennox that her captain was -a great success. - -"I knew he'd be!" said Bud, complacently. "That man's so beautiful and -good he's fit for the kingdom of heaven." - -"So are you, you rogue," said Lady Anne, gathering her in her arms, -without a bit of awkwardness, to the great astonishment of 'Lizbeth Ann, -who thought that titled folk were not a bit like that--perhaps had not -the proper sort of arms for it. "Yes, so are you, you rogue!" said Lady -Anne. - -"No, I'm not," said the child. "Leastways only sometimes. Most the time -I'm a born limb, but then again I'm nearly always trying to be better, -and that's what counts, I guess." - -"And you're going away to leave us," said Lady Anne, whereon a strange -thing happened, for the joyous child, who was to get her heart's desire -and such lovely garments, burst into tears and ran from the room to hide -herself up-stairs in the attic bower, whose windows looked to a highway -that seemed hateful through her tears. Her ladyship went off distressed, -but Bell, as one rejoicing, said: - -"I always told you, Ailie--William's heart!" - -But Bud's tears were transient; she was soon back among the snippets -where Ailie briskly plied the sewing-machine and sang the kind of -cheerful songs that alone will go to the time of pedalling, and so give -proof that the age of mechanism is the merry age if we have the happy -ear for music. And Bud, though she tired so soon of hems, could help -another way that busy convocation, for she could sit tucked up in Uncle -Dan's snoozing chair, and read _Pickwick_ to the women till the maid -of Colonsay was in the mood to take the Bardell body by the hair of the -head and shake her for her brazenness to the poor wee man. Or the child -would dance as taught by the lady of the Vaudeville, or start at -Ailie's bidding (Bell a little dubious) to declaim a bit of "Hamlet" -or "Macbeth," till 'Lizbeth Ann saw ghosts and let her nerves get the -better of her, and there was nothing for it but a cheery cup of tea all -round. Indeed, I must confess, a somewhat common company! I could almost -wish for the sake of my story they were more genteel, and dined at -half-past seven and talked in low, hushed tones of Bach and Botticelli. - -But oh! they were happy days--at least so far as all outward symptoms -went; it might, indeed, have been a real trousseau and not the garments -for the wedding of a maiden and the world. How often, in the later -years, did Winifred Wallace, reading to me her own applause in -newspapers, stop to sigh and tell me how she once was really -happy--happy to the inward core, feeling the dumb applause of four women -in a country chamber when the world was all before her and her heart was -young? - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -WORKING thus, furiously, at the task of love, which, in all it does -for the youth it cherishes, must ever be digging a grave for its own -delight, Bell could forget, for periods, that the days of Bud's presence -in their midst were numbered. Had she stopped her needle and shears a -moment and let her mind contemplate all the emptiness of a fortnight -hence, and the months and years thereafter, she would have broken down. -Ailie, knowing it, watched her anxiously, and kept the sewing briskly -going as if they wrought for a living in a factory, frightened to think -of her sister's desperate state when that last button, that the armies -talk about, was in its place. - -But the days sped; one afternoon there was a final sweeping up of the -scraps in the temporary work-room, Bell searched her mind in vain to -think of anything further wanted, and, though there was still a week to -go, became appalled to find that the only thing of any moment to be done -'twixt now and Friday fortnight was to say good-bye. - -No, stay! there was another thing to bring a little respite--the girl's -initials must be sewn upon her clothing. A trivial thing to mention, you -may think, but the very thought of it gave pleasure to the sisters, till -Bud herself, sent to Miss Minto's for a sample of the woven letters, -came back with only one--it was a W. - -"Has the stupid body not got L's and D's?" asked Bell. "There's no use -here for W." And Bud showed a countenance startled and ashamed. - -"Oh, Auntie!" she cried. "I asked for W's. I quite forgot my name was -Lennox Dyce, for in all I'm thinking of about the school and Edinburgh, -I am Winifred Wallace." - -It was all that was needed to bring about her aunt's prostration. "I'm -far from well," said she, and took to her bed, her first confession of -weakness in all the years that Dan or Ailie could remember. What ailed -her she could not tell, and they sent, without acquainting her, for Dr. -Brash. Hearing he was coming, she protested that she could not see the -man; that she was far too ill to be troubled by any doctor; but Dr. -Brash was not so easily to be denied. - -"H'm!" said he, examining her; "you're system's badly down." - -"I never knew I had one," said the lady, smiling wanly, with a touch of -Dan's rowan-jelly humor. "Women had no system in my young days to go up -or down; if they had they were ashamed to mention it. Nowadays it seems -as fashionable as what Kate, since she got her education, calls the -boil." - -"You have been worrying," he went on, "a thing that's dreadfully -injudicious. H'm! worse than drink I say. Worry's the death of half my -patients; they never give my pills a chance. "And there was a twinkle -in his eyes which most of Dr. Brash's patients thought was far more -efficacious than his pills. - -"What would I worry for?" said Miss Bell. "I'm sure I have every -blessing: goodness and mercy all my life." - -"Just so! Just so!" said Dr. Brash. "Goodness and--and, h'm!--mercy -sometimes take the form of a warning that it's time we kept to bed for a -week, and that's what I recommend you." - -"Mercy on me! Am I so far through as that?" she said, alarmed. "It's -something serious--I know by the cheerful face that you put on you. -Little did I think that I would drop off so soon. And just at the very -time when there's so much to do!" - -"Pooh!" said Dr. Brash. "When you drop off, Miss Dyce, there'll be an -awful dunt, I'm telling you. God bless my soul, what do you think -a doctor's for but putting folk on their pins again! A week in -bed--and--h'm!--a bottle. Everything's in the bottle, mind you!" - -"And there's the hands of the Almighty, too," said Bell, who constantly -deplored the doctor was so poor a kirk attender, and not a bit in that -respect like the noble doctors in her sister's latest Scottish novels. - -Dr. Brash went out of the room to find the rest of the household sorely -put about in the parlor: Lennox an object of woe, and praying hard to -herself with as much as she could remember of her uncle Dan's successful -supplication for herself when she had the pneumonia. To see the -cheerfulness of his countenance when he came in was like the sunburst on -a leaden sea. "Miss Bell's as sound as her namesake," he assured them. -"There's been something on her mind"--with a flash of the eye, at once -arrested, towards Lennox--"and she has worked herself into a state of -nervous collapse. I've given her the best of tonics for her kind--the -dread of a week in bed--and I'll wager she'll be up by Saturday. The -main thing is to keep her cheerful, and I don't think that should be -very difficult." - -Bud there and then made up her mind that her own true love was Dr. -Brash, in spite of his nervous sisters and his funny waistcoats. Ailie -said if cheerfulness would do the thing she was ready for laughing-gas, -and the lawyer vowed he would rake the town for the very latest -chronicles of its never-ending fun. - -But Bud was long before him on her mission of cheerfulness to the -bedroom of Auntie Bell. Did you ever see a douce Scotch lass who never -in her life had harbored the idea that her native hamlet was other than -the finest dwelling-place in all the world, and would be happy never to -put a foot outside it?--that was to be the role to-day. A sober little -lass, sitting in a wicker-chair whose faintest creak appeared to put her -in an agony--sitting incredibly long and still, and speaking Scotch -when spoken to, in the most careful undertone, with a particular kind of -smile that was her idea of judicious cheerfulness for a sick-room. - -"Bairn!" cried her aunt at last, "if you sit much longer like that -you'll drive me crazy. What in the world's the matter with you?" - -"Nothing, dear Auntie Bell," said Bud, astonished. "You needn't tell me! -What was the doctor saying?" - -"He said you were to be kept cheerful," said Bud, "and I'm doing the -best I can--" - -"Bless me, lass! do you think it's cheery to be sitting there with a -face like an old Geneva watch? I would sooner see you romping." - -But no, Bud could not romp that day, and when her uncle Dan came up -he found her reading aloud from Bell's favorite Gospel according to -John--her auntie's way of securing the cheerfulness required. He looked -at the pair, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders bent, and all the -joviality with which he had come carefully charged gave place for a -little to a graver sentiment. So had Ailie sat, a child, beside her -mother on her death-bed, and, reading John one day, found open some -new vista in her mind that made her there and then renounce her dearest -visions, and thirl herself forever to the home and him and Bell. - -"Well, Dan," said his sister, when the child was gone, "what have you -brought me? Is it the usual pound of grapes?"--for she was of the kind -whose most pious exercises never quench their sense of fun, and a gift -of grapes in our place is a doleful hint to folks bedridden; I think -they might as well bring in the stretching-board. - -"A song-book would suit you better," said the lawyer. "What do you -think's the matter with you? Worrying about that wean! Is this your -Christian resignation?" - -"I am _not_ worrying, Dan," she protested. "At least, not very much, and -I never was the one to make much noise about my Christianity." - -"You need to be pretty noisy with it nowadays to make folk believe you -mean it." - -"What did Dr. Brash say down the stair?" she asked. "Does he--does he -think I'm going to die?" - -"Lord bless me," cried her brother, "this is not the way that women die. -I never heard of you having a broken heart. You're missing all the usual -preliminaries, and you haven't even practised being ill. No, no, Bell; -it 'll be many a day, I hope, before you're pushing up the daisies, as -that vagabond Wanton Wully puts it." - -Bell sighed. "You're very joco," said she--"you're aye cheery, whatever -happens." - -"So long as it doesn't happen to myself--that's philosophy; at least -it's Captain Consequence's. And if I'm cheery to-day it's by the -doctor's orders. He says you're to be kept from fretting even if we have -to hire the band." - -"Then I doubt I'm far, far through!" said Bell. "I'm booked for a better -land." And at that the lawyer gave a chirruping little laugh, and said: - -"Are you sure it's not for Brisbane?" - -"What do you mean?" she asked him, marvellously interested for one who -talked of dying. - -"It's a new one," he explained. "I had it to-day from her ladyship's -captain. He was once on a ship that sailed to Australia, and half-way -out a passenger took very ill. 'That one's booked for heaven, anyway,' -Maclean said to the purser. 'No,' said the purser, who was busy; -'he's booked for Brisbane.' 'Then he would be a damned sight better in -heaven,' said Maclean. 'I have been twice in Brisbane, and I know.'" -Bell did her best to restrain a smile, but couldn't. "Oh, Dan!" said -she, "you're an awful man! You think there's nothing in this world to -daunten anybody." - -"Not if they happen to be Dyces," said he. "A high heart and a humble -head--you remember father's motto? And here you're dauntened because -the young one's going only one or two hundred miles away for her own -advantage." - -"I'm not a bit dauntened," said Miss Bell, with spirit. "It's not myself -I'm thinking of at all; it's her, poor thing! among strangers night -and day; damp sheets, maybe, and not a wiselike thing to eat. You would -never forgive yourself if she fell into a decline." - -"Ailie throve pretty well on their dieting," he pointed out; "and if -she's going to fall into a decline, she's pretty long of starting." - -"But you mind they gave her sago pudding," said Miss Bell; "and if -there's one thing Lennox cannot eat it's sago pudding. She says it is so -slippy, every spoonful disappears so sudden it gives her an awful start. -She says she might as well sup puddocks." Dan smiled at the picture and -forced himself to silent patience. - -"And they'll maybe let her sit up to all hours," Bell proceeded. "You -know the way she fastens on a book at bedtime!" - -"Well, well!" said he, emphatically. "If you're sure that things are to -be so bad as that, we'll not let her go at all," and he slyly scanned -her countenance, to see, as he expected, that she was indignant at the -very thought of backing out, now that they had gone so far. - -"You needn't start to talk nonsense," said she; "of course she's going; -but oh, Dan! it's not the sheets, nor food, nor anything like that that -troubles me; it's the knowledge that she'll never be the same wee lass -again." - -"Tuts!" said Daniel Dyce, and cleaned some moisture from his spectacles. -"You're putting all the cheerful things I was going to say to you out -of my head. I'm off to business. Is there anything I can do for you? No? -Then remember, you're not to stir this week outside the blankets; these -are the orders of Dr. Brash. I have no doubt Ailie will do very well at -the housekeeping," and he left her with a gleam of mischief in his eye. - -The window of the bedroom was a little open; on one of the trees a -blackbird sang, and there came in the scent of apple-ringie and a -tempting splendor of sun. For twenty minutes the ailing body tried to -content herself with the thought of a household managed by Alison Dyce, -and then arose to see if Wully Oliver was not idling in the garden. -She saw him sitting on his barrow-trams, while Ailie walked among the -dahlias and chucked her favorites of them under their chins. - -"William Oliver!" cried Miss Bell, indignantly, having thrown a Shetland -shawl about her; "is that all the work you can do in a day?" - -He looked up at the window, and slowly put his pipe in his pocket. - -"Well, m'em," said he. "I dare say I could do more, but I never was much -of a hand for showing off." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -WHEN Miss Bell rose, as she did in a day or two, bantered into a speedy -convalescence by Ailie and Dan, it was to mark Bud's future holidays -on the calendar, and count the months in such a cunning way that she -cheated the year of a whole one by arguing to herself that the child -would be gone a fortnight before they really missed her, and as good as -home again whenever she started packing to return. And Edinburgh, when -one was reasonable and came to think of it, was not so very awful; the -Miss Birds were there, in the next street to the school where Bud was -bound for, so if anything should happen--a fire, for instance--fires -were desperately common just now in the newspapers, and ordinary -common-sense suggested a whole clothes-rope for the tying up of the -young adventurer's boxes; or if Bud should happen to be really hungry -between her usual meals--a common thing with growing bairns--the Birds -were the very ones to make her welcome. It was many a year since Bell -had been in Edinburgh--she had not been there since mother died; she was -determined that if she had the money, and was spared till Martinmas, -she should make a jaunt of it and see the shops: it was very doubtful -if Miss Minto wasn't often lamentably out of date with many of her -fashions. - -"Oh, you vain woman!" cried Ailie to her; "will nothing but the very -latest satisfy you?" - -Bud was to be sure and write once every week, on any day but Saturday, -for if her letters came on Sunday they would be tempted to call at the -post-office for them, like Captain Consequence, instead of waiting till -the Monday morning. And if she had a cold, or any threatening of -quinsy, she was to fly for her very life to the horehound mixture, put -a stocking round her neck, and go to bed. Above all was she to mind and -take her porridge every morning, and to say her prayers. - -"I'll take porridge to beat the band," Bud promised, "even--even if I -have to shut my eyes all through." - -"In a cautious moderation," recommended Uncle Dan. "I think myself -oatmeal is far too rich a diet for the blood. I have it from Captain -Consequence that there's nothing for breakfast like curried kidney and a -chop to follow. But I hope you'll understand that, apart from the carnal -appetites, the main thing is to scoop in all the prizes. I'll be -dreadfully disappointed if you come back disgraced, with anything less -of them than the full of a cart. That, I believe, is the only proof of a -Scottish liberal education. In Ailie's story-books it's all the good, -industrious, and deserving pupils who get everything. Of course, if you -take all the prizes somebody's sure to want--but, tuts! I would never -let that consideration vex me--it's their own lookout. If you don't take -prizes, either in the school or in the open competition of the world, -how are folk to know they should respect you?" - -"You must have been a wonderfully successful student in your day," said -Ailie, mischievously. "Where are all your medals?" - -Dan laughed. "It's ill to say," said he, "for the clever lads who won -them when I wasn't looking have been so modest ever since that they've -clean dropped out of sight. I never won anything myself in all my life -that called for competition--except the bottom of the class! When it -came to competitions, and I could see the other fellows' faces, I -was always far too tired or well disposed to them to give them a -disappointment which they seemingly couldn't stand so well as myself. -But then I'm not like Bud here. I hadn't a shrewd old uncle egging me -on. So you must be keen on the prizes, Bud. Of course, there's -wisdom, too, but that comes later--there's no hurry for it. Prizes, -prizes--remember the prizes; the more you win, the more, I suppose, I'll -admire you." - -"And if I don't win any, Uncle Dan?" said Bud, slyly, knowing very well -the nature of his fun. - -"Then, I suppose, I'll have to praise the Lord if you keep your health, -and just continue loving you," said the lawyer. "I admit that if you're -anyway addicted to the prizes you'll be the first of your name that -was so. In that same school in Edinburgh, your auntie Ailie's quarterly -reports had always, 'Conduct--Good' and 'Mathematics--Fairly moderate.' -We half expected she was coming back an awful diffy; but if she did, she -made a secret of it. I forgave her the 'Fairly moderate' myself, seeing -she had learned one thing--how to sing. I hope you'll learn to sing, -Bud, in French or German or Italian--anything but Scotch. Our old Scotch -songs, I'm told, are not what's called artistic." - -"The sweetest in the world!" cried Auntie Bell. "I wonder to hear you -haivering." - -"I'm afraid you're not a judge of music," said the brother. "Scotch -songs are very common--everybody knows them. There's no art in them, -there's only heart--a trifling kind of quality. If you happen to hear -me singing 'Annie Laurie' or 'Afton Water' after you come home, Bud, be -sure and check me. I want to be no discredit to you." - -"No, I sha'n't, Uncle Dan," said the child. "I'll sing 'Mary Morison' -and 'Ae Fond Kiss' and 'Jock o'Hazeldean' at you till you're -fairly squealing with delight. _I_ know. Allow me! Why, you're only -haivering." - -"Have mercy on the child, Dan," said his sister. "Never you mind him, -Bud, he's only making fun of you." - -"I know," said Bud; "but I'm not kicking." - -Kate--ah, poor Kate!--how sorry I should be for her, deserted by her -friend and tutor if she had not her own consoling captain. Kate would -be weeping silently every time the pipe was on in the scullery and she -thought how lonely her kitchen was to be when the child was gone. And -she had plans to make that painful exile less heart-rending: she was -going to write to her sister out in Colonsay, and tell her to be sure -and send fresh country eggs at intervals of every now and then, or maybe -oftener in the winter-time, to Lennox, for the genuine country egg was a -thing it was hopeless to expect in. Edinburgh, where there wasn't such -a thing as sand or grass or heather--only causeway stones. She could -assure Lennox that, as for marriage, there was not the slightest risk -for years and years, since there wasn't a house in the town to let that -would be big enough (and still not dear) to suit a captain. He was quite -content to be a plain intended, and hold on. And as for writing, she -would take her pen in hand quite often and send the latest news to -Lennox, who must please excuse haste and these d-d-desperate pens, and -having the post to catch--not that she would dream of catching the poor, -wee, shauchly creature; it was just a way of speaking. Would Lennox not -be so dreadful homesick, missing all the cheery things, and smothered up -in books in yon place--Edinburgh? - -"I expect I'll be dre'ffle homesick," admitted Bud. "I'm sure you will, -my lassie," said the maid. "I was so homesick myself when I came here -at first that my feet got almost splay with wanting to turn back to -Colonsay. But if I'm not so terribly good-looking, I'm awful brave, and -soon got over it. When you are homesick go down to the quay and look -at the steamboats or take a turn at our old friend Mr. Puckwuck." Four -days--three days--two days--one day--tomorrow; that last day went so -fast it looked as if Wanton Wully had lost the place again and rang -the evening bell some hours before it was due. Bud could only sit by, -helpless, and marvel at the ingenuity that could be shown in packing -what looked enough to stock Miss Minto's shop into a couple of boxes. -She aged a twelvemonth between the hand-glass at the bottom and the -bath-sheet on the top. - -"And in this corner," said Miss Bell, on her knees, "you'll find your -Bible, the horehound mixture, and five-and-twenty threepenny bits for -the plate on Sundays--some of them sixpences." - -"Irish ones, apparently," said Uncle Dan. - -"Some of them sixpences, for the Foreign Mission days, and one shilling -for the day of the Highlands and Islands." - -"You're well provided for the kirk, at any rate," said - -Uncle Dan. "I'll have to put a little money for this wicked world in the -other corner." And he did. - -When the coach next day set out--No, no, I cannot tell you all, for I -hate to think of tears and would hurry over partings. It went in tearful -weather, rain drizzling on Bud and Auntie Ailie, who accompanied her. -They looked back on the hill-top and saw the gray slates glint under -a gray sky, and following them on the miry road poor Footles, faithful -heart, who did not understand. He paddled through the mud till a blast -from the bugle startled him, and he seemed to realize that this was -some painful new experience. And then he stood in the track of the -disappearing wheels and lifted up his voice, in lamentation. - -The night came on, resuming her ancient empire--for she alone, and not -the day, did first possess, and finally shall possess unquestioned, -this space dusty with transient stars, and the light is Lord of another -universe where is no night, nay, nor terror thereof. From the western -clouds were the flame and gold withdrawn, and the winds sighed from the -mountains as vexed for passing days. The winds sighed from the mountains -and the mists came mustering to the glens; the sea crept out on long, -bird-haunted, wailing, and piping sands, naught to be seen of it, its -presence obvious only in the scent of wrack and the wash on the pebbled -beaches. Behind the town the woods lay black and haunted, and through -them, and far upward in the valley dripping in the rain, and clamorous -with hidden bums and secret wells, went the highway to the world, vacant -of aught visible, but never to be wholly vacant, since whoso passes on -a highway ever after leaves some wandering spirit there. Did the child, -that night, think of the highway that had carried her from home? In the -hoarsely crying city did she pause a moment to remember and retrace her -way to the little town that now lay faintly glowing in the light of its -own internal fires? - -Thus Bell wondered, standing at her window looking into the solitary -street. Every mile of separating highway rose before her; she walked -them in the rain and dark; all the weary longing of the world came down -on her that mirk night in September, and, praying that discretion should -preserve and understanding keep her wanderer, she arrived at the soul's -tranquility and heard without misgiving the wild geese cry. - -Her brother took the Books, and the three of them--master, mistress, and -maid--were one in the spirit of worship, longing, and hope. Where, then, -had gone Daniel Dyce, the lawyer, the gentle ironist, on whose lips so -often was kindly mockery, on whose tongue levity or its pretence-- - - "Never by passion quite possess'd, - And never quite benumbed by the world's sway"? - -It was Bell's nightly duty to turn the lamp out in the lobby and bolt -the outer door. She went this night reluctant to perform that office, -but a thought possessed her of a child from home, somewhere in the -darkness among strangers, and she had to call her brother. - -"What is it?" said he. - -"The door," she said, ashamed of herself; "I cannot bolt it." - -He looked at her flushed face and her trembling hand and understood. -"It's only the door of a house," said he; "_that_ makes no difference," -and ran the bolt into its staple. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -FOR all the regrets of increasing age there is one alleviation among -many, that days apart from those we love pass the quicker, even as our -hurrying years. Thus it is that separations are divested of more and -more of their terrors the nearer we are to that final parting which -wipes out all and is but the going to a great reunion. So the first -fortnight, whereof Miss Bell thought to cheat the almanac under the -delusion that Bud's absence would then scarcely be appreciated, was in -truth the period when she missed her most, and the girl was back for her -Christmas holidays before half of her threepenny bits for the plate were -done. - -It was worth a year of separation to see her come in at the door, rosy -from the frosty air, with sparkling eyes and the old, sweet, rippling -laugh, not--outside at least--an atom different from the girl who had -gone away; and it made up to Bud herself for many evenings homesick on -an Edinburgh pillow to smell again the old celestial Christmas grocery -and feel the warmth of her welcome. - -Myself, I like to be important--not of such consequence to the world as -to have it crick its neck with having to look up at me, but now and then -important only to a few old friends; and Bud, likewise, could always -enjoy the upper seat, if the others of her company were never below -the salt. She basked in the flattery that Kate's deportment gave to her -dignity as a young lady educated at tremendous cost. - -It was the daft days of her first coming over again; but this time -she saw all with older eyes--and, besides, the novelty of the little -Scottish town was ended. Wanton Wully's bell, pealing far beyond the -burgh bounds--commanding, like the very voice of God, to every ear of -that community, no matter whether it rang at mom or eve--gave her at -once a crystal notion of the smallness of the place, not only in its -bounds of stone and mortar, but in its interests, as compared with the -city, where a thousand bells, canorous on the Sabbath, failed, it was -said, to reach the ears of more than a fraction of the people. The bell, -and John Taggart's band on hogmanay, and the little shops with windows -falling back already on timid appeals, and the gray, high tenements -pierced by narrow entries, and the douce and decent humdrum folk--she -saw them with a more exacting vision, and Ailie laughed to hear them all -summed up as "quaint." - -"I wondered when you would reach 'quaint,'" said Auntie Ailie; "it was -due some time ago, but this is a house where you never hear the word. -Had you remained at the Pige--at the Misses Duff's Seminary, Miss Amelia -would have had you sewing it on samplers, if samplers any longer were -the fashion." - -"Is it not a nice word, 'quaint'?" asked Bud, who, in four months among -critics less tolerant (and perhaps less wise) than the Dyces, had been -compelled to rid herself of many transatlantic terms and phrases. - -"There's nothing wrong with 'quaint,' my dear," said Miss Ailie; "it -moves in the most exclusive circles; if I noticed it particularly, it -is because it is the indication of a certain state of mind, and tells me -where you stand in your education more clearly than your first quarterly -report. I came home from school with 'quaint' myself; it not only seemed -to save a lot of trouble by being a word which could be applied to -anything not otherwise describable, but I cherished it because its use -conferred on me a kind of inward glow of satisfaction like--like--like -Aunt Bell's homemade ginger cordial. 'Quaint,' Bud, is the shibboleth of -boarding-school culture; when you can use the word in the proper -place, with a sense of superiority to the thing so designated, you are -practically a young lady and the polish is taking on." - -"They all say it in our school," explained Bud, apologetically; "at -least all except The Macintosh--I couldn't think of her saying it, -somehow. - -"Who's The Macintosh?" asked Ailie. - -"Why! was there no Macintosh in your time?" exclaimed Bud. "I thought -she went away back to the--to the Roman period. She's the funniest -old lady in the land, and comes twice a week to teach us dancing and -deportment. She's taught them to mostly all the nobility and gentry of -Scotland; she taught Lady Anne and all her brothers when they were in -St. Andrew's." - -"I never heard of her," said Ailie; "she must be--be--be decidedly -quaint." - -"She's so quaint you'd think she'd be kept in a corner cupboard with a -bag of camphor at the back to scare the moths away. She's a little wee -mite, not any bigger than me--than I--and they say she's seventy years -old; but sometimes she doesn't look a day more than forty-five, if -it weren't for her cap and her two front teeth missing. She's got the -loveliest fluffy, silver hair--pure white, like Mrs. Molyneux's Aunt -Tabitha's Persian cat--cheeks like an apple, hands as young as yours, -and when she walks across a room she glides like this, so you'd think -she was a cutter yacht--" - -Bud sailed across the parlor to represent the movement of The Macintosh -with an action that made her aunties laugh, and the dog gave one short -yelp of disapproval. - -"That was the way that Grandma Buntain walked--it used to be considered -most genteel," said Bell. "They trained girls up to it with a back-board -and a book on the top of the head; but it was out before my time; we -just walked any way in Barbara Mushet's seminary, where the main things -were tambouring and the catechism." - -"Miss Macintosh is a real lady," Bud went on. "She's got genuine old -ancestors. They owned a Highland place called Kaims, and the lawyers -have almost lawyered it a' awa', she says, so now she's simply got to -help make a living teaching dancing and deportment. I declare I don't -know what deportment is no more than the child unborn, unless it's -shutting the door behind you, walking into a room as if your head and -your legs were your own, keeping your shoulders back, and being polite -and kind to everybody, and I thought folks 'd do all that without -attending classes, unless they were looney. Miss Macintosh says they are -the _sine qua non_ and principal branches for a well-bred young lady -in these low days of clingy frocks and socialism; but the principal -she just smiles and gives us another big block of English history. Miss -Macintosh doesn't let on, but I know she simply can't stand English -history, for she tells us, spells between quadrilles, that there hasn't -been any history anywhere since the Union of the Parliaments, except -the Rebellion of 1745. But she doesn't call it a rebellion. She calls -it 'yon affair.' _She's_ Scotch! I tell you, Auntie Bell, you'd love to -meet her! I sit, and sit, and look at her like--like a cat. She -wears spectacles, just a little clouded, only she doesn't call them -spectacles; she says they are preserves, and that her eyes are as good -as anybody's. They're bright enough, I tell you, for over seventy." - -"Indeed, I would like to see the creature!" exclaimed Miss Bell. "She -must be an original! I'm sometimes just a trifle tired of the same old -folk about me here--I know them all so well, and all they're like to do -or say, that there's nothing new or startling to be expected from them." - -"Would you like to see her?" said Bud, quickly; "then--then, some day -I'll tell her, and I'll bet she'll come. She dresses queer--like a lady -in the 'School for Scandal,' and wears long mittens like Miss Minto, and -when our music-master, Herr Laurent, is round she makes goo-goo eyes at -him fit to crack her glasses. 'Oh, Hair-r-r!' she says, sitting with -her mitts in her lap--'oh, Hair-r-r! Can you no' give the young ladies -wiselike Scotch songs instead o' that dreich Concone?' And sometimes -she'll hit him with a fan. He says she plays the piano to our dancing -the same as it was a spinet." - -"I declare it beats all!" said Miss Bell. "Does the decent old body -speak Scotch?" - -"Sometimes. When she's making goo-goo eyes at the Herr, or angry, or -finding fault with us but doesn't want to hurt our feelings." - -"I can understand that," said Miss Bell, with a patriot's fervor; -"there's nothing like the Scotch for any of them. I fall to it myself -when I'm sentimental; and so does your uncle Dan." - -"She says she's the last of the real Macintoshes--that all the rest you -see on Edinburgh signboards are only in-comers or poor de-degenerate -cadets; and I guess the way she says it, being a de-degenerate cadet -Mackintosh must be the meanest thing under the cope and canopy. Heaps of -those old ancestors of hers went out in the days of the clans, fighting -for any royalty that happened along. She's got all their hair in -lockets, and makes out that when they disappeared Scotland got a pretty -hard knock. I said to her once the same as Aunt Ailie says to you, Aunt -Bell, 'English and Scots, I s'pose we're all God's people, and it's -a terribly open little island to be quarrelling in, seeing all the -Continent can hear us quite plain,' but she didn't like it. She said it -was easy seen I didn't understand the dear old Highland mountains, where -her great-great-grandfather, Big John of the Axe, could collect five -hundred fighting-men if he wagged a fiery cross at them. 'I have Big -John's blood in me!' she said, quite white, and her head shaking so much -her preserves nearly fell off her nose. 'I've Big John's blood in me; -and when I think of things, _I hate the very name o' thae aboaminable -English!_' 'Why, you've never seen them, Miss Mackintosh,' I said--for -I knew she'd never had a foot outside Scotland. 'No,' said she, quite -sharp, 'and I don't want to, for they might be nice enough, and then I -wad be bound to like them.'" - -"Oh, Bell!" cried Ailie, laughing, "Miss Mackintosh is surely your -doppelganger." - -"I don't know what a doppelganger is," said Auntie - -Bell; "but she's a real sensible body, and fine I would like to see -her." - -"Then I'll have to fix it somehow," said Bud, with emphasis. "P'r'aps -you'll meet her when you come to Edinburgh--" - -"I'm not there yet, my dear." - -"Or she might be round this way by-and-by. She'd revel in this place; -she'd maybe not call it quaint, but she'd find it pretty careless about -being in the--in the modern rush she talks about, and that would make her -happier than a letter from home. I believe The Macintosh--" - -"Miss Macintosh, my dear," said Bell, reprovingly, and the girl reddened. - -"I know," said she. "It's mean to talk of her same as she was a -waterproof, and I often try not to, because I like her immensely; but -it's so common among the girls that I forget. I believe Miss Macintosh -would love this place and could stop in it forever." - -"Couldn't you?" asked Auntie Ailie, slyly. - -Bud hesitated. "Well, I--I like it," said she. "I just love to lie awake -nights and think about it, and I can hear the wind in the trees and the -tide come in, and the bell, and the wild geese; and family worship at -the Provost's on Sunday nights, and I can almost _be_ here, I think so -powerfully about it; but--but--" She stopped short, for she saw a look -of pain in the face of her auntie Bell. - -"But what?" said the latter, sharply. - -"Oh, I'm a wicked, cruel, ungrateful girl, Auntie Bell; and I ought to -want to love this place so much, nobody could push me out of it. And I -_do_ love it, but feel if I lived here always I'd not grow any more." - -"You're big enough," said Auntie Bell. "You're as big as myself now." - -"I mean inside. Am I a prig, Aunt Ailie? I'd hate to be a prig! But I'd -hate as bad to tell a lie; and I feel I'd never learn half so much or do -half so much here as I'd do where thousands of folk were moving along -in a procession and I was with them, too. A place like this is like a -kindergarten--it's good enough as far's it goes, but it doesn't teach -the higher branches." - -Bell gazed at her in wonder and pity and blame, shaking her head. All -this was what she had anticipated. - -"I know the feeling," said Aunt Ailie, "for I have shared it myself; and -sometimes still it will come back to me, but in my better hours I think -I'm wiser and can be content. If there is growth in you, you will grow -anywhere. You were born in the noise of Chicago, Bud, and I suppose it's -hard to get it out of the ears. By-and-by I hope you'll find that we are -all of us most truly ourselves, not in the crowd, but when we are alone, -and that not the smallest hamlet in the world need be intellectually -narrow for any one with imagination, some books, and a cheerful -constitution. Do you understand that, Bud?" - -Bud thought hard for a moment and then shook her head. "It sounds as if -it ought to be true," said she, "and I dare say you think just now it -is true; but I simply _can't_ believe it." And all of them turned at the -sound of a chuckling laugh to find that Mr. Dyce had heard this frank -confession. - -"That's the worst of you, Bud," said he. "You will never let older folk -do your thinking for you." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -IT is another mercy, too, that in our age we learn to make the best of -what aforetime might be ill to thole, as Bell made fine new garments -out of old ones faded by turning them outside in and adding frills and -flounces. Bud's absence early ceased to be deplorable, since it wakened -cheerful expectations not to be experienced had she stayed at home, gave -rise to countless fond contrivances for her happiness in exile, and two -or three times a year to periods of bliss, when her vacations gave -the house of Dyce the very flower of ecstasy. Her weekly letters of -themselves were almost compensation for her absence. On the days of -their arrival Peter the post would come blithely whistling with his M.C. -step to the lawyer's kitchen window before he went to the castle itself, -defying all routine and the laws of the postmaster-general, for he knew -Miss Dyce would be waiting feverishly, having likely dreamed the night -before of happy things that--dreams going by contraries, as we all of us -know in Scotland--might portend the most dreadful tidings. - -Bud's envelope was always on the top of his budget. For the sake of it -alone (it sometimes seemed to Peter and those who got it) had the mail -come splashing through the night--the lawyer's big blue envelopes, as -it were, had got but a friendly lift through the courtesy of clerks in -Edinburgh, and the men on the railway train, and the lad who drove the -gig from Maryfield. What were big blue envelopes of the business world -compared with the modest little square of gray with Lennox Dyce's -writing on it? - -"Here's the usual! Pretty thick to-day!" would Peter say, with a smack -of satisfaction on the window-sash. Ah, those happy Saturdays! Everybody -knew about them. "And how's hersel'?" the bell-ringer would ask in the -by-going, not altogether because his kindly interest led to an eye -less strict on his lazy moods in the garden. One Fair day, when Maggie -White's was irresistible, it rang so merrily with drovers, and he lost -the place again, he stopped the lawyer on the street to ask him what -Miss Lennox thought of all this argument about the Churches, seeing she -was in the thick of it in Edinburgh. - -"Never you mind the argument, Will," said Daniel Dyce, "you do your duty -by the auld kirk bell; and as for the Free folk's quarrelling, amang -them be't!" - -"But can you tell me, Mr. D-D-Dyce," said Wanton Wully, with as much -assurance as if he was prepared to pay by the Table of Fees, "what's the -difference between the U.F.'s and the Frees? I've looked at it from -every point, and I canna see it." - -"Come and ask me some day when you're sober," said the lawyer, and -Wanton Wully snorted. - -"If I was sober," said he, "I wouldna want to ken--I wouldna give a -curse." - -Yet each time Bud came home she seemed, to the mind of her auntie Bell, -a little further off from them--a great deal older, a great deal -less dependent, making for womanhood in a manner that sometimes was -astounding, as when sober issues touched her, set her thinking, made her -talk in fiery ardors. Aunt Ailie gloried in that rapid growth; Aunt Bell -lamented, and spoke of brains overtaxed and fevered, and studies that -were dangerous. She made up her mind a score of times to go herself to -Edinburgh and give a warning to the teachers; but the weeks passed, and -the months, and by-and-by the years, till almost three were gone, and -the Edinburgh part of Lennox's education was drawing to a close, and the -warning visit was still to pay. - -It was then, one Easter came. The Macintosh. - -Bell and Ailie were out that afternoon for their daily walk in the woods -or along the shore, when Mr. Dyce returned from the sheriff's court -alert and buoyant, feeling much refreshed at the close of an encounter -with a lawyer who, he used to say, was better at debating than himself, -having more law-books in his possession and a louder voice. Letting -himself in with his pass-key, he entered the parlor, and was astonished -to find a stranger, who rose at his approach and revealed a figure -singular though not unpleasing. There was something ludicrous in her -manner as she moved a step or two from the chair in which she had -been sitting. Small, and silver-gray in the hair, with a cheek that -burned--it must be with embarrassment--between a rather sallow neck -and sunken temples, and wearing smoked spectacles with rims of -tortoiseshell, she would have attracted attention anywhere even if her -dress had been less queer. Queer it was, but in what manner Daniel Dyce -was not the person to distinguish. To him there was about it nothing -definitely peculiar, except that the woman wore a crinoline, a Paisley -shawl of silken white, and such a bonnet as he had not seen since -Grandma Buntain's time. - -"Be seated, ma'am," said he. "I did not know I had the honor of a -visitor," and he gave a second, keener glance that swept the baffling -figure from the flounced green poplin to the snow-white lappet of her -bonnet. A lady certainly--that was in the atmosphere, however odd might -be her dress. "Where, in the world has this one dropped from?" he asked -himself and waited an explanation. - -"Oh, Mr. Dyce!" said the lady, in a high, shrill voice that plainly told -she never came from south of the border, and with a certain trepidation -in her manner, "I'm feared I come at an inconvenient time to ye, and I -maybe should hae bided at your office; but they tell't me ye were out at -what they ca'd a Pleading Diet. I've come about my mairrage." - -"Your marriage!" said the lawyer, scarcely hiding his surprise. - -"Yes, my mairrage!" she repeated, sharply, drawing the silken shawl -about her shoulders, bridling. "There's naething droll, I hope and trust, -in a maiden lady ca'in' on a writer for his help about her settlements!" -"Not at all--not at all, ma'am," said Daniel Dyce. "I'm honored in your -confidence." And he pushed his spectacles up on his brow that he might -see her less distinctly and have the less inclination to laugh at such -an eccentric figure. - -She broke into a torrent of explanation. "Ye must excuse me, Mr. Dyce, -if I'm put about and gey confused, for it's little I'm acquent wi' -lawyers. A' my days I've heard o' naething but their quirks, for they -maistly rookit my grandfaither. And I cam' wi' the coach frae Maryfield, -and my heart's in a palpitation wi' sic brienging and bangin' ower -heughs and hills--" She placed a mittened hand on a much-laced stomacher -and sighed profoundly. - -"Perhaps--perhaps a glass of wine--" began the lawyer, with his eye on -the bell-pull and a notion in his head that wine and a little seed-cake -someway went with crinolines and the age of the Paisley shawl. - -"No, no!" she cried, extravagantly. "I never lip it; I'm--I'm in the -Band o' Hope." - -The lawyer started, and scanned her again through his glasses with a -genial, chuckling crow. "So's most maiden ladies, ma'am," said he. "I'm -glad to congratulate you on your hopes being realized." - -"It remains to be seen," said the visitor. "Gude kens what may be the -upshot. The maist deleeberate mairrage maun be aye a lottery, as my -auntie Grizel o' the Whinhill used to say; and I canna plead that mine's -deleeberate, for the man just took a violent fancy the very first nicht -he set his een on me, fell whummlin' at my feet, and wasna to be put -aff wi' 'No' or 'Maybe.' We're a puir, weak sex, Mr. Dyce, and men's sae -domineerin'!" - -She ogled him through her clouded glasses; her arch smile showed a -blemish of two front teeth a-missing. He gave a nod of sympathy, and -she was off again. "And to let ye ken the outs and ins o't, Mr. Dyce, -there's a bit o' land near Perth that's a' that's left o' a braw estate -my forebears squandered in the Darien. What I want to ken is, if I winna -could hinder him that's my _fiance_ frae dicin' or drinkin' 't awa' ance -he got me mairried to him? I wad be sair vexed at ony such calamity, -for my family hae aye been barons." - -"Ance a baron aye a baron," said the lawyer, dropping into her own broad -Scots. - -"Yes, Mr. Dyce, that's a' very fine; but baron or baroness, if there's -sic a thing, 's no great figure wantin' a bit o' grun to gang wi' the -title; and John Cleghorn--that's my intended's name--has been a gey -throughither chiel in his time by a' reports, and I doubt wi' men it's -the aulder the waur." - -"I hope in this case it 'll be the aulder the wiser, Miss--" said the -lawyer, and hung unheeded on the note of interrogation. - -"I'll run nae risks if I can help it," said the lady, emphatically; -"and I'll no' put my trust in the Edinburgh lawyers, either; they're a' -tarred wi' the a'e stick, or I sair misjudge them. But I'm veesitin' a -cousin ower by at Maryfield, and I'm tell't there's no' a man that's -mair dependable in a' the shire than yoursel', so I just cam' ower ains -errand for a consultation. Oh, that unco' coach! the warld's gane wud, -Mr. Dyce, wi' hurry and stramash, and Scotland's never been the same -since--But there! I'm awa' frae my story; if it's the Lord's will that -I'm to marry Johnny Cleghom, what comes o' Kaims? Will he be owner o't?" - -"Certainly not, ma'am," said Mr. Dyce, with a gravity well preserved -considering his inward feelings. "Even before the Married Women's -Property Act, his _jus mariti_, as we ca' it, gave him only his wife's -personal and movable estate. There is no such thing as _communio -bonorum_--as communion of goods--between husband and wife in Scotland." - -"And he canna sell Kaims on me?" - -"No; it's yours and your assigns _ad perpetuam remanentiam_, being feudal -right." - -"I wish ye wad speak in honest English, like mysel', Mr. Dyce," said -the lady, sharply. "I've forgotten a' my Laiten, and the very sound o't -gars my heid bizz. I doubt it's the lawyer's way o' gettin' round puir, -helpless bodies." - -"It's scarcely that," said Mr. Dyce, laughing. "It's the only chance -we get to air auld Mr. Trayner, and it's thought to be imposin'. _Ad -perpetuam remanentiam_ just means to remain forever." - -"I thocht that maybe John might hae the poo'er to treat Kaims as my -tocher." - -"Even if he had," said Mr. Dyce, "a _dot_, or _dos_, or tocher, in the -honest law of Scotland, was never the price o' the husband's hand; he -could only use the fruits o't. He is not entitled to dispose of it, and -must restore it intact if unhappily the marriage should at any time be -dissolved." - -"Dissolved!" cried the lady. "Fegs! ye're in an awfu' hurry, and the -ring no' bought yet. Supposin' I was deein' first?" - -"In that case I presume that you would have the succession settled on -your husband." - -"On Johnny Cleghom! Catch me! There's sic a thing as--as--as bairns, Mr. -Dyce," and the lady simpered coyly, while the lawyer rose hurriedly to -fumble with some books and hide his confusion at such a wild conjecture. -He was relieved by the entrance of Bell and Ailie, who stood amazed at -the sight of the odd and unexpected visitor. - -"My sisters," said the lawyer, hastily. "Miss--Miss--I did not catch the -name." - -"Miss Macintosh," said the stranger, nervously, and Bell cried out, -immediately, "I was perfectly assured of it! Lennox has often spoken -of you, and I'm so glad to see you. I did not know you were in the -neighborhood." - -Ailie was delighted with so picturesque a figure. She could scarcely -keep her eyes off the many-flounced, expansive gown of poplin, the -stomacher, the ponderous ear-rings, the great cameo brooch, the long -lace mittens, the Paisley shawl, the neat poke bonnet, and the fresh -old face marred only by the spectacles and the gap where the teeth were -missing. - -"I have just been consultin' Mr. Dyce on my comin' mairrage," said The -Macintosh; and at this intelligence from a piece of such antiquity Miss -Bell's face betrayed so much astonishment that Dan and Ailie almost -forgot their good manners. - -"Oh, if it's business--" said Bell, and rose to go; but The Macintosh -put a hand on her sleeve and stayed her. - -"Ye needna fash to leave, Miss Dyce," said she. "A' thing's settled. -It seems that Johnny Cleghom canna ca' a rig o' Kaims his ain when he -mairries me, and that was a' I cam' to see about. Oh, it's a -mischancy thing a mairrage, Miss Dyce; maist folk gang intill't -heels-ower-hurdies, but I'm in an awfu' swither, and havena a mither to -guide me." - -"Keep me!" said Miss Bell, out of all patience at such maidenly -apprehensions; "ye're surely auld enough to ken your ain mind. I hope -the guidman's worthy." - -"He's no' that ill--as men-folk gang," said The Macintosh, resignedly. -"He's as fat's creish, and has a craighlin' cough, the body, and he's -faur frae bonny, and he hasna a bawbee o' his ain, and, sirs! what a -reputation! But a man's a man, Miss Dyce, and time's aye fleein'." - -At such a list of disabilities in a husband, the Dyces lost all sense of -the proprieties and broke into laughter, in which the lady joined them, -shaking in her armchair. Bell was the first to recover with a guilty -sense that this was very bad for Daniel's business. She straightened her -face, and was about to make apologies, when Footles bounded in at the -open door, to throw himself at the feet of The Macintosh and wave a -joyous tail. But he was not content there! In spite of her resistance he -must be in her lap, and then, for the first time, Bell and Ailie noticed -a familiar cadence in the stranger's laugh. - -Dan rose and clapped her on the back. "Well done, Bud!" said he. "Ye had -us a'; but Footles wasna to be swindled wi' an auld wife's goon," and he -gently drew the spectacles from the laughing eyes of his naughty niece. - -"Oh, you rogue!", cried Auntie Ailie. - -"You wretch!" cried Auntie Bell. "I might have known your cantrips. -Where in the world did you get these clothes?" - -Bud sailed across the room like a cutter yacht and put her arms about -her aunt's neck. "Didn't you know me?" she asked. - -"How could I know you, dressed up like that? And your teeth--you imp! -they're blackened; and your neck--you jad! it's painted; and--oh, -lassie, lassie! Awa', awa'! the deil's ower grit wi' ye!" - -"Didn't _you_ know me, Aunt Ailie?" asked Bud. - -"Not in the least," said Ailie, taking the droll old figure in her arms. -"Perhaps I might have known you if I didn't think it was to-morrow you -were coming." - -"It was to have been to-morrow; but the measles have broken out in -school, and I came a day earlier, and calculated I'd just hop in and -surprise you all. Didn't you guess, Uncle Dan?" - -"Not at first," said he. "I'll admit I was fairly deceived, but when -you talked about being in the Band of Hope I saw at a shot through The -Macintosh. I hope you liked my Latin, Bud." - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - -"YOU surely did not come in these daftlike garments all the way from -Edinburgh?" asked her auntie Bell, when the wig had been removed and -Bud's youth was otherwise resumed. - -"Not at all!" said Bud, sparkling with the success of her deception. "I -came almost enough of a finished young lady to do you credit, but when I -found there was nobody in the house except Kate, I felt I couldn't get a -better chance to introduce you to The Macintosh if I waited for a year. -I told you we'd been playing charades last winter at the school, and I -got Jim to send me some make-up, the wig, and this real cute old lady's -dress. They were all in my box to give you some fun sometime, and Kate -helped me hook things, though she was mighty scared to think how angry -you might be, Aunt Bell; and when I was ready for you she said she'd be -sure to laugh fit to burst, and then you'd see it was only me dressed -up; and Footles he barked, so he looked like giving the show away, so I -sent them both out in the garden and sat in a stage fright that almost -shook my ear-rings off. I tell you I felt mighty poorly sitting there -wondering what on earth I was to say; but by-and-by I got to be so much. -The Macintosh I felt almost sure enough her to have the rheumatism, and -knew I could fix up gags to keep the part going. I didn't expect Uncle -Dan would be the first to come in, or I wouldn't have felt so brave -about it, he's so sharp and suspicious--that's with being a lawyer, I -s'pose, they're a' tarred wi' the a'e stick Miss Macintosh says; and -when he talked all that solemn Latin stuff and looked like running up a -bill for law advice that would ruin me, I laughed inside enough to ache. -Now _amn't_ I just the very wickedest girl, Uncle Dan?" - -"A little less Scotch and a more plausible story would have made the -character perfect," said her uncle. "Where did you get them both? Miss -Macintosh was surely not the only model?" - -"Well, she's not so Scotch as I made out, except when she's very -sentimental, but I felt she'd have to be as Scotch as the mountain and -the flood to fit these clothes; and she's never talked about marrying -anybody herself, but she's making a match just now for a cousin of hers, -and tells us all about it. I was partly her, but not enough to be -unkind or mean, and partly her cousin, and a little bit of the Waverley -Novels--in fact, I was pure mosaic, like our dog. There wasn't enough -real quaint about Miss Macintosh for ordinary to make a front scene -monologue go, but she's fuller of hints than--than a dictionary, -and once I started I felt I 'could play half a dozen Macintoshes all -different, so's you'd actually think she was a surging crowd. You see, -there's the Jacobite Macintosh, and the 'aboaminable English' Macintosh, -and the flirting Macintosh who raps Herr Laurent with her fan, and the -fortune-telling Macintosh who reads palms and teacup leaves, and the -dancing and deportment Macintosh who knows all the first families in -Scotland." Bud solemnly counted off the various Macintoshes on her -finger-tips. - -"We'll have every one of them when you come home next winter," said Miss -Ailie. "I'd prefer it to the opera." - -"I can't deny but it's diverting," said Miss Bell; "still it's -dreadfully like play-acting, and hardly the thing for a sober dwelling. -Lassie, lassie, away this instant and change yourself!" - -If prizes and Italian songs had really been the proof that Bud had taken -on the polish, she would have disappointed Uncle Dan, but this art -of hers was enough to make full amends, it gave so much diversion. -Character roused and held her interest; she had a lightning eye for -oddities of speech and gesture. Most of a man's philosophy is in a -favorite phrase, his individuality is betrayed in the way he carries his -hat along the aisle on Sunday. Bud, each time that she came home from -Edinburgh, collected phrases as others do postage-stamps, and knew how -every hat in town was carried. Folk void of idiosyncrasy, having the -natural self restrained by watchfulness and fear, were the only ones -whose company she wearied of; all others she studied with delight, -storing of each some simulacrum in her memory. Had she reproduced them -in a way to make them look ridiculous she would have roused the -Dyces' disapproval, but lacking any sense of superiority she made -no impersonation look ignoble--the portraits in her gallery, like -Raeburn's, borrowed a becoming curl or two and toned down crimson noses. - -But her favorite character was The Macintosh in one of the countless -phases that at last were all her own invention, and far removed from the -original. Each time she came home, the dancing-mistress they had never -really seen became a more familiar personage to the Dyces. "I declare," -cried Bell, "I'm beginning to think of you always as a droll old body." -"And how's the rheumatism?" Dan would ask; it was "The Macintosh said -this" or "The Macintosh said that" with Ailie, and even Kate would quote -the dancing-mistress with such earnestness that the town became familiar -with the name and character without suspecting they were otten merely -parts assumed by young Miss Lennox. - -Bud carried the joke one night to daring lengths by going as Miss -Macintosh with Ailie to a dance, in a gown and pelerine of Grandma -Buntain's that had made tremendous conquests eighty years before. - -Our dances at the inn are not like city routs: Petronella, La Tempete, -and the reel have still an honored place in them; we think the joy of -life is not meant wholly for the young and silly, and so the elderly -attend them. We sip claret-cup and tea in the alcove or "adjacent," and -gossip together if our dancing days are done, or sit below the flags and -heather, humming "Merrily danced the quaker's wife," with an approving -eye on our bonny daughters. Custom gives the Provost and his lady a -place of honor in the alcove behind the music; here is a petty court -where the civic spirit pays its devoirs, where the lockets are large -and strong, and hair-chains much abound, and mouths before the mellowing -midnight hour are apt to be a little mim. - -Towards the alcove Ailie--Dan discreetly moving elsewhere--boldly The -Macintosh, whose ballooning silk brocade put even the haughtiest of the -other dames in shadow. She swam across the floor as if her hoops and not -her buckled shoon sustained her, as if she moved on air. - -"Dod! here's a character!" said Dr. Brash, pulling down his waistcoat. -"Where have the Dyces gotten her?" - -"The Ark is landed," said the Provost's lady. "What a peculiar -creature!" - -Ailie gravely gave the necessary introductions, and soon the notable -Miss Macintosh of Kaims was the lion of the assembly. She flirted most -outrageously with the older beaux, sharing roguish smiles and taps of -the fan between them, and, compelling unaccustomed gallantries, set -their wives all laughing. They drank wine with her in the old style; she -met them glass for glass in water. - -"And I'll gie ye a toast now," she said, when her turn came--"Scotland's -Rights," raising her glass of water with a dramatic gesture. - -"Dod! the auld body's got an arm on her," whispered Dr. Brash to Colin -Cleland, seeing revealed the pink, plump flesh between the short sleeves -and the top of the mittens. - -They drank the sentiment--the excuse for the glass was good enough, -though in these prosaic days a bit mysterious. - -"What are they?" asked the Provost. - -"What are what?" said The Macintosh. - -"Scotland's Rights." - -"I'll leave it to my frien' Mr. Dyce to tell ye," she said, quickly, for -the lawyer had now joined the group. "It 'll aiblens cost ye 6s. 8d.,but -for that I dare say he can gie ye them in the Laiten. But--but I hope -we're a' frien's here?" she exclaimed, with a hurried glance round her -company. "I hope we have nane o' thae aboaminable English amang us. I -canna thole them! It has been a sair doon-come for Scotland since ever -she drew in wi' them." For a space she dwelt on themes of rather antique -patriotism that made her audience smile, for in truth in this burgh town -we see no difference between Scotch and English; in our calculations -there are only the lucky folk, born, bred, and dwelling within the sound -of Will Oliver's bell, and the poor souls who have to live elsewhere, -all equally unfortunate, whether they be English, Irish, or Scots. - -"But here I'm keepin' you gentlemen frae your dancin'," she said, -interrupting herself, and consternation fell on her company, for sets -were being formed for a quadrille, and her innuendo was unmistakable. -She looked from one to the other of them as if enjoying their -discomfiture. - -"I--I--I haven't danced myself for years," said the Provost, which was -true. And Colin Cleland, sighing deeply in his prominent profile and -hiding his feet, protested quadrilles were beyond him. The younger men -quickly remembered other engagements and disappeared. "Will you do me -the honor?" said Dr. Brash. Good man! a gentle hero's heart was under -that wrinkled waistcoat. - -"Oh!" said The Macintosh, rising to his arm, "you'll be sure and no' to -swing me aff my feet, for I'm but a frail and giddy creature." - -"It would be but paying you back," said the doctor, bowing. "Miss -Macintosh has been swingin' us a' aff our feet since she entered the -room." - -She laughed behind her clouded glasses, tapped him lightly with her fan, -and swam into the opening movement of the figure. The word's abused, yet -I can but say she danced divinely, with such grace, lightness of -foot, and rhythm of the body that folk stared at her in admiration -and incredulity; her carriage, seen from behind, came perilously near -betraying her, and possibly her partner might have soon discovered who -he had, even if she had not made him a confession. - -"Upon my word!" said he, in a pause between the figures--"upon my word! -you dance magnificently, Miss Macintosh. I must apologize for such a -stiff old partner as you've gotten." - -"I micht weel dance," said she. "You ken I'm a dancin'-mistress?" Then -she whispered hurriedly in her natural voice to him. "I feel real bold, -Dr. Brash, to be dancing with you here when I haven't come out yet, and -I feel real mean to be deceiving you, who would dance with an old -frump just because you're sorry for her, and I _can't_ do it one minute -longer. Don't you know me, really?" - -"Good Lord!" said he, in an undertone, aghast. "Miss Lennox!" - -"Only for you," she whispered. "Please don't tell anybody else." - -"You beat all," he told her. "I suppose I'm making myself ridiculous -dancing away here with--h'm!--auld lang syne, but faith I have the -advantage now of the others, and you mustn't let on when the thing comes -out that I did not know you from the outset. I have a crow to pick with -Miss Ailie about this--the rogue! But, young woman, it's an actress you -are!" - -"Not yet, but it's an actress I mean to be," she said, poussetting with -him. - -"H'm!" said he, "there seems the natural gift for it; but once on a time -I made up my mind it was to be poetry." - -"I've got over poetry," she said. "I found I was only one of that kind -of poets who always cut it up in fourteen-line lengths and begin with -'As when.' No, it's to be the stage, Dr. Brash; I guess God's fixed it." -"Whiles He is--h'm--injudicious," said the doctor. "But what about Aunt -Bell?" - -"There's no buts about it, though I admit I'm worried to think of Auntie -Bell. She considers acting is almost as bad as lying, and talks about -the theatre as Satan's abode. If it wasn't that she was from home -to-night, I daren't have been here. I wish--I wish I didn't love her -so--almost--for I feel I've got to vex her pretty bad." - -"Indeed you have," said Dr. Brash. "And you've spoiled my dancing, for -I've a great respect for that devoted little woman." - -Back in the alcove The Macintosh found more to surround her than ever, -though it was the penalty of her apparent age that they were readier -to joke than dance with her. Captain Consequence, wanting a wife with -money, if and when his mother should be taken from him, never lost a -chance to see how a pompous manner and his medals would affect strange -ladies; he was so marked in his attention and created such amusement -to the company that, pitying him, and fearful of her own deception, she -proposed to tell fortunes. The ladies brought her their emptied teacups; -the men solemnly laid their palms before her; she divined for all their -past and future in a practised way that astonished her uncle and aunt, -who, afraid of some awkward sally, had kept aloof at first from her -levee, but now were the most interested of her audience. - -Over the leaves in Miss Minto's cup she frowned through her clouded -glasses. "There's lots o' money," said she, "and a braw house, and a -muckle garden wi' bees and trees in't, and a wheen boy's speilin' the -wa's--you may be aye assured o' bien circumstances, Miss Minto." - -Miss Minto, warmly conscious of the lawyer at her back, could have -wished for a fortune less prosaic. - -"Look again; is there no' a man to keep the laddies awa'?" suggested the -Provost, pawky body! - -"I declare there is!" cried The Macintosh, taking the hint. "See; there! -he's under this tree, a' huddled up in an awfu' passion." - -"I can't make out his head," said the Provost's lady. "Some men hae -nane," retorted the spae-wife; "but what's to hinder ye imaginin' 't, -like me?" - -"Oh! if it's imagination," said the Provost's lady, "I can hear him -swearin'. And now, what's my cup?" - -"I see here," said The Macintosh, "a kind o' island far at sea, and a -ship sailin' frae't this way, wi' flags to the mast-heid and a man on -board." - -"I hope he's well, then," said the Provost's lady, "for that's our -James, and he's coming from Barbadoes; we had a letter just last week. -Indeed, you're a perfect wizard!" She had forgotten that her darling -James's coming was the talk of the town for ten days back. - -Colin Cleland, rubicund, good-natured, with his shyness gone, next -proffered his palm to read. His hand lay like a plaice, inelegant and -large, in hers, whose fresh young beauty might have roused suspicion in -observers less carried away in the general illusion. - -"Ah, sir," said she, with a sigh, "ye hae had your trials!" - -"Mony a ane, ma'am," said the jovial Colin. "I was ance a lawyer, for my -sins." - -"That's no' the kind o' trial I mean," said The Macintosh. "Here's a -wheen o' auld tribulations." - -"Perhaps you're richt, ma'am," he admitted. "I hae a sorry lot o' them -marked doon in auld diaries, but, Gude be thanked, I canna mind them -unless I look them up. They werena near sae mony as the rattlin' ploys -I've had." - -"Is there no' a wife for Mr. Cleland?" said the Provost--pawky, pawky -man! - -"There was ance, I see, a girl, and she was the richt girl, too," said -The Macintosh. - -"Yes, but I was the wrang man," said Colin Cleland, drawing his hand -away, and nobody laughed, for all but The Macintosh knew that story and -made it some excuse for foolish habits. - -"I'm a bit of a warlock myself," said Dr. Brash, beholding the -spae-wife's vexation at a _faux-pas_ she only guessed herself guilty of. -"I'll read your loof, Miss Macintosh, if ye let me." - -They all insisted she should submit herself to the doctor's unusual art, -and taking her hand in his he drew the mitten off and pretended to scan -the lines. - -"Travel--h'm--a serious illness--h'm--your life, in youth, was quite -adventurous, Miss Macintosh." - -"Oh, I'm no' that auld yet," she corrected him. "There's mony a chance -at fifty. Never mind my past, Dr. Brash, what about my future?" - -He glanced up a moment and saw her aunt and uncle listening in -amusement, unaware as yet that he knew the secret, then scanned her palm -again. - -"The future--h'm! let me see. A long line of life; heart line -healthy--h'm--the best of your life's before you, though I cannot say it -may be the happiest part of it. Perhaps my--h'm--my skill a little fails -here. You have a strong will, Miss--Miss Macintosh, and I doubt in this -world you'll aye have your own way. And--h'm--an odd destiny surely's -before you--I see the line of fame, won--h'm--in a multitude of -characters; by the Lord Hairry, ma'am, you're to be--you're to be an -actress!" - -The company laughed at such a prophecy for one so antiquated, and the -doctor's absurdity put an end to the spaeing of fortunes, but he had -effected his purpose. He had found the words that expressed the hope, -half entertained so far, of Ailie and the fear of her brother Dan. They -learned before they left that he had not spoken without his cue, yet -it was a little saddened they went home at midnight with their ward in -masquerade. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - -FORTUNATELY Kate's marriage came to distract them for a while from the -thought of Bud's future. The essential house had been found that was -suitable for a captain, yet not too dearly rented--a piece of luck in -a community where dwellings are rarely vacant, and every tenant over -eighty years of age has the uneasy consciousness that half a dozen pairs -betrothed have already decided upon a different color of paint for his -windows, and have become resigned, with a not unpleasing melancholy, to -the thought that in the course of nature his time cannot be long. - -The Captain--that once roving eagle-heart subdued by love for the maid -of Colonsay--so persistently discouraged any yachting trips which took -the _Wave_ for more than a night or two from her moorings that Lady Anne -and her husband, knowing the heart themselves, recommended immediate -marriage; and Miss Bell, in consequence, was scouring the country-side -for Kate's successor in the kitchen, but hopeless of coming on one who -could cook good kale, have a cheery face, and be a strict communicant. -"I can get fine cooks that are wanting in the grace of God, and pious -girls who couldn't be trusted to bake a Christian scone," she said; -"it's a choice between two evils." - -"Of two evils choose the third, then," said Dan to his sister, flushed -and exhilarated by a search that, for elderly maiden ladies, makes up -for an older hunt. "The sport's agreeing with you." - -It was a great distress to Bud that the wedding should take place in -the house and not in church, as seemed most fitting. She felt a private -ceremony deprived her of a spectacle, with Miss Amelia Duff playing the -wedding march on the harmonium, and the audience filing up the aisle in -their Sunday clothes, the carriage of their hats revealing character. - -"Why, you're simply going to make it look like a plain tea!" she -protested. "If it was my marriage, Kate, I'd have it as solemn and grand -as Harvest Sunday. A body doesn't get married to a man in brass buttons -every other day, and it's a chance for style." - -"We never have our weddings in the church," said Kate. "Sometimes the -gentry do, but it's not considered nice; it's kind of Roman Catholic. -Forbye, in a church, where would you get the fun?" - -If Bud hadn't realized that fun was the main thing at Scottish weddings, -she got hints of it in Kate's preparation. Croodles and hysterics took -possession of the bride: she was sure she would never get through the -ceremony with her life, or she would certainly do something silly that -would make the whole world laugh at her and dreadfully vex the Captain. -Even her wedding-dress, whose prospect had filled her dreams -with gladness, but deepened her depression when it came from the -manteau-maker's--she wept sad stains on the front width, and the -orange-blossom they rehearsed with might have been a wreath of the -bitter rue. Bud wanted her to try the dress on, but the bride was aghast -at such an unlucky proposition; so she tried it on herself, with sweet -results, if one did not look at the gathers in the back. They practised -the ceremony the night before, Kate's sister from Colonsay (who was -to be her bridesmaid) playing the part of a tall, brass-buttoned -bridegroom. - -"Oh, Kate!" cried Bud, pitifully, "you stand there like's you were a -soda-water bottle and the cork lost. My goodness! brisk up a bit; if -it's hard on you, just remember it isn't much of a joke for Charles. -Don't you know the eyes of the public are on you?" - -"That's just it," said poor Kate. "I wouldn't be frightened a bit if it -wasn't for that, for I'm so brave. What do you do with your hands?" - -"You just keep hold of them. Mercy! don't let them hang like that; -they're yours; up till now he's got nothing to do with them. Now for the -tears--where's your handkerchief? That one's yards too big, and there -isn't an edge of lace to peek through, but it 'll do this time. It -'ll all be right on the night. Now the minister's speaking, and you're -looking down at the carpet and you're timid and fluttered and nervous, -and thinking what an epoch this is in your sinful life, and how you -won't be Kate MacNeill any more but Mrs. Charles Maclean, and the Lord -knows if you will be happy with him--" - -The bride blubbered and threw her apron over her head as usual. Bud was -in despair. - -"Well, you are a silly!" she exclaimed. "All you want is a gentle tear -or two trickling down the side of your nose, enough to make your eyes -blink but not enough to soak your veil or leave streaks. And there you -gush like a water-spout, and damp your face so much the bridegroom 'll -catch his death of cold when he kisses you. Stop it, Kate MacNeill, it -isn't anybody's funeral. Why, weddings aren't so very fatal; lots of -folk get over them--leastways in America." - -"I can't help it!" protested the weeping maid. "I never could be -melancholy in moderation, and the way you speak you make me think it's -running a dreadful risk to marry anybody." - -"Well," said Bud, "you needn't think of things so harrowing, I suppose. -Just squeeze your eyes together and bite your lip, and perhaps it 'll -start a tear; if it don't, it 'll look like as if you were bravely -struggling with emotion. And then there's the proud, glad smile as you -back out on Charles's arm--give her your arm, Minnie--the trial's over, -you know, and you've got on a lovely new plain ring, and all the other -girls are envious, and Charles Maclean and you are one till death do -you part. Oh, Kate, Kate! don't grin; that's not a smile, it's a--it's -a railroad track. Look!" Bud assumed a smile that spoke of gladness and -humility, confidence and a maiden's fears, a smile that appealed and -charmed. - -"I couldn't smile like that to save my life," said Kate, in a -despair. "I wish you had learned me that instead of the height of -Popacatthekettle. Do you think he'll be angry if I don't do them things -properly?" - -"Who? Charles! Why, Charles 'll be so mortally scared himself he -wouldn't notice if you made faces at him or were a different girl -altogether. He'll have a dull, dead booming in his ears, and wonder -whether it's wedding-day or apple-custard--all of them I've seen married -looked like that. It's not for Charles you should weep and smile; it's -for the front of the house, you know, it's for the people looking on." - -"Toots!" said Kate, relieved. "If it's only for them, I needn't bother. -I thought that maybe it was something truly refined that he would be -expecting. It's not--it's not the front of a house I'm marrying. Tell -me this and tell me no more--is there anything special I should do to -please my Charles?" - -"I don't think I'd worry," said Bud, on reflection. "I dare say it's -better not to think of anything dramatic. If I were you I'd just keep -calm as grass, and pray the Lord to give me a good, contented mind and -hurry up the clergyman." - -But yet was the maiden full of a consciousness of imperfection, since -she had seen that day the bride's-cake on view in the baker's window--an -edifice of art so splendid that she felt she could never be worthy of -it. "How do you think I'll look?" she asked. And Bud assured her she -would look magnificently lovely. - -"Oh, I wish I did," she sighed. "But I'm feared I'll not look so lovely -as I think I do." - -"No girl ever did," said Bud. "That's impossible. But when Charles comes -to and sits up he'll think you're It; he'll think you perfect." - -"Indeed, I'm far from that," said Kate. "I have just my health and -napery and a liking for the chap, and I wish I wasn't near so red." - -Bud was able to instruct her in the right deportment for a bride, but -had no experience in the management of husbands; for that Kate had to -take some hints from her mistress, who was under the delusion that her -brother Dan was the standard of his sex. - -"They're curious creatures," Bell confided. "You must have patience, -ay, and humor them. They'll trot at your heels like pussy for a -cheese-pudding, but they'll not be driven. If I had a man I would never -thwart him. If he was out of temper or unreasonable I would tell him he -was looking ill, and that would make him feared and humble. When a man -thinks he's ill, his trust must be in the Lord and in his womankind. -That's where we have the upper hand of them! First and last the thing's -to be agreeable. You'll find he'll never put anything in its proper -place, and that's a heartbreak, but it's not so bad as if he broke -the dishes and blackened your eyes, the way they do in the newspapers. -There's one thing that's the secret of a happy home--to live in the fear -of God and within your income; faith! you can't live very well without -it." - -"Oh, m'em! it's a desperate thing a wedding," said the maid. "I never in -all my life had so much to think about before." - -There were stricken lads in these days! The more imminent became her -utter loss, the more desirable Kate became; but sentiment in country -towns is an accommodating thing, and all the old suitors--the whistlers -in the close and purveyors of conversation lozenges--found consolation -in the fun at the wedding, and danced their griefs away on the flags of -the Dyces' kitchen. - -A noble wedding! All the cookery skill of Kate and her mistress was -expended on it, and discretion, for the sake of the incredulous, forbids -enumeration of the roasted hens. Chanticleers in the town crowed roupily -and ruefully for months thereafter. The bridegroom might have stepped -over the wall to the wedding chamber or walked to it in a hundred paces -up the lane; he rode instead in a carriage that made a stately and -circuitous approach round John Turner's corner, and wished the distance -had been twenty times as long. "It's not that I'm feared," said he, -"or that I've rued the gyurl, but--but it's kind of sudden!"--a curious -estimate of a courtship that had started in the burial-ground of -Colonsay so many years before! - -A noble wedding!--its revelry kept the town awake till morning; from -the open windows the night was filled with dancing times and songs and -laughter; boys cried "Fab, fab!" in the street, and a fairy lady--really -a lady all grown up, alas!--stood at a window and showered pence among -them. - -Long before the wedding party ended, Bud went up to bed, but she lay for -hours awake in the camceil-room hearing the revelry of the kitchen. She -had said goodbye to the blissful pair whose wedding was the consequence -of her own daft pranks as letter-writer; she would miss the maid of -Colonsay. The knowledge that 'tis an uncertain world, a place of -change and partings, comes to us all sooner or later in one flash of -apprehension and of grief; for the first time Bud felt the irrevocable -nature of the past, and that her happy world under this roof was, -someway, crumbling, and the tears came to her eyes. - -A hurried footstep sounded on the stairs, a rap came to the door, and -the bride came in, unbidrin the darkness, whispering Lennox's name. - -Her only answer was a sob from the girl in bed. - -"Miss Lennox!" said the bride, distressed, "what ails you? I've come -up to say good-bye; it wasn't a right good-bye at all with yon folk -looking. Oh, Lennox, Lennox! _ghaol mo chridhe!_ my heart is sore to be -leaving you, for the two of us were so merry! Now I have a man, and a -good man, too; it was you that gave me him, but I have lost my loving -friend." She threw herself on the bed, regardless of her finery, and the -Celtic fount of her swelled over in sobs and tears. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -IT took two maids to fill Kate's place in the Dyces' household--one for -the plain boiling of potatoes and the other for her pious atmosphere, -as the lawyer argued, and a period of discomfort attended on what Bell -called their breaking in. No more kitchen nights for Lennox, now that -she was a finished young lady and her friend was gone; she must sit in -the parlor strumming canzonets on Grandma Buntain's Broadwood, taming -her heart of fire. It was as a voice from Heaven's lift there came one -day a letter from London in which Mrs. Molyneux invited her and one of -her aunts for an Easter holiday. - -"Indeed and I'll be glad to be quit for a week or two of both of you," -said Bell to her niece and Ailie. "Spring cleaning, with a couple of -stupid huzzies in the kitchen--not but what they're nice and willing -lassies--is like to be the sooner ended if we're left to it ourselves." - -A radiant visage and lips in firm control betrayed how Lennox felt. She -had never been in London--its cry went pealing through her heart. Ailie -said nothing, but marvelled how blithely and blindly her sister always -set foot on the facile descent that led to her inevitable doom of -deprivation and regret. - -"The Grand Tour!" said Uncle Dan; "it's the fitting termination to your -daft days, Lennox. Up by at the castle there's a chariot with imperials -that conveyed the Earl on his, the hammer-cloth most lamentably faded. -I often wonder if his lordship takes a sly seat in it at times when no -one's looking, and climbs the Alps or clatters through Italian towns -again when Jones the coachman is away at his tea. It's a thing I might -do myself if I had made the Tour and still had the shandrydan." - -"Won't you really need me?" Aunt Ailie asked her sister, and half -hoped, half feared spring cleaning should postpone the holiday, but -Bell maintained it should be now or never, more particularly as Lennox's -dress was new. - -Oh, London, London! siren town! how it bewitched the girl! Its cab-horse -bells were fairy; its evening, as they entered, hung with a myriad magic -moons and stars. The far-stretching streets with their flaming jewel -windows, the temples in the upper dusk, and the solemn squares crowding -round country trees; the throngs of people, the odors of fruit-shops, -the passion of flowers, the mornings silvery gray, and the multitudinous -monuments rimed by years, thunder of hoofs in ways without end, and the -silence of mighty parks--Bud lay awake in the nights to think of them. - -Jim Molyneux had the siren by the throat: he loved her and shook a -living out of her hands. At first she had seemed to him too old, too -calm, too slow and stately as compared with his own Chicago, nor did -she seem to have a place for any stranger; now he had found she could be -bullied, that a loud voice, a bold front, and the aid of a good tailor -could compel her to disgorge respect and gold. He had become the manager -of a suburban theatre, where oranges were eaten in the stalls and the -play was as often as not "The Father's Curse"; but once a day he walked -past Thespian temples in the city, and, groaning at their mismanagement, -planned an early future for himself with classic fronts of marble and -duchesses advertising him each night by standing in rows on the pavement -awaiting their carriages. Far along Grove Lane, where he dwelt in a -pea-green house with nine French bean rows and some clumps of bulbs -behind, one could distinguish his coming by the smartness of his walk -and the gleam of the sunshine on his hat. He had one more secret of -success--teetotalism. "Scotch and soda," he would say, "that's what ails -the boys, and makes 'em sleepier than Hank M'Cabe's old tomcat. Good -boys, dear boys, they've always got the long-lost-brother grip, but -they're mighty prone to dope assuagements for the all-gone feeling -in the middle of the day. When they've got cobwebs in their little -brilliantined belfries, I'm full of the songs of spring and merry old -England's on the lee. See? I don't even need to grab; all I've got to do -is to look deserving and the stuff comes crowding in; it always does -to a man who looks like ready money and don't lunch on cocktails and -cloves." - -"Jim, boyette," his wife would say, "I guess you'd better put ice or -something on your bump of self-esteem "--but she proudly wore the jewels -that were the rewards of his confidence and industry. - -Bud and Ailie, when they thought of home in these days, thought of it -as a picture only, or as a chapter in a book covered in mouldy -leather, with fs for s's. In their prayers alone were Dan and Bell real -personages; and the far-off little town was no longer a woodcut, but an -actual place blown through by the scented airs of forest and sea. Bell -wrote them of rains and hails and misty weather; Grove Lane gardens -breathed of daffodils, and the city gleamed under a constant sun. -They came back to the pea-green house each day from rare adventuring, -looking, in the words of Molyneux, as if they were fresh come off -the farm, and the best seats in half a dozen theatres were at their -disposal. "Too much of the playhouse altogether!" Bell wrote once, -remonstrating. "Have you heard that man in the City Temple yet?" - -In Molyneux's own theatre there was a break in the long succession of -melodrama and musical comedy. He privately rejoiced that, for two ladies -of such taste as Ailie and her niece, he could display a piece of the -real legitimate--"King John"--though Camberwell was not very likely to -make a week of Shakespeare profitable to his treasury. Ailie and Bud -were to go on Tuesday; and Bud sat up at night to read an acting copy of -"King John" till every character took flesh in her imagination, and the -little iron balcony behind the pea-green house became the battlemented -walls of Angiers, to whose postern came trumpeters of France. - -They sat in the drawing-room, astonished at her speeches-- - - "'You men of Angiers, open wide your gates, - And let young Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, in; - - Who, by the hand of France, this day hath made - Much work for tears in many an English, mother.'" - -or-- - - '"I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; - My name is Constance; I am Geffrey's wife; - Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost!'" - -"Bravo, Bud!" would Molyneux cry, delighted. "Why, if I was an -actor-manager, I'd pay you any salary you had the front to name. Ain't -she just great, Millicent? I tell you, Miss Ailie, she puts the blinkers -on Maude Adams, and sends Ellen 'way back in the standing room only. -Girly, all you've got to learn is how to move. You mustn't stand two -minutes in the same place on the stage, but cross 'most every cue." - -"I don't know," said Bud, dubiously. "Why should folk have fidgets on a -stage? They don't always have them in real life. I'd want to stand like -a mountain--_you_ know, Auntie Ailie, the old hills at home!--and look -so--so--so awful, the audience would shriek if I moved, the same as if I -was going to fall on them." - -"Is that how you feel?" asked Jim Molyneux, curiously surveying her. - -"Yes, that's how I feel," said Bud, "when I've got the zip of poetry in -me. I feel I'm all made up of burning words and eyes." - -"Child, you are very young!" said Mrs Molyneux. - -"Yes," said Bud, "I suppose that's it. By-and-by I'll maybe get to be -like other people." - -Jim Molyneux struck the table with his open hand. "By George!" he cried; -"I wouldn't hurry being like other people; that's what every gol-damed -idiot in England's trying, and you're right on the spot just now as you -stand. That's straight talk, nothing but! I allow I favor a bit of leg -movement on the stage--generally it's about the only life there is on -it--but a woman who can play with her head don't need to wear out much -shoe-leather. Girly--" He stopped a second, then burst out with the -question, "How'd you like a little part in this 'King John'?" - -A flame went over the countenance of the girl, and then she grew -exceedingly pale. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Oh Jim Molyneux, don't be so -cruel!" - -"I mean it," he said, "and I could fix it, for they've got an Arthur in -the cast who's ill and bound to break down in a day or two if she had -an understudy--and if I--Think you could play a boy's part? There isn't -much to learn in Arthur, but that little speech of yours in front of -Angiers makes me think you could make the part loom out enough to catch -the eye of the _cognoscenti._ You'd let her, wouldn't you, Miss Ailie? -It'd be great fun. She'd learn the lines in an hour or two, and a couple -of nights of looking on would put her up to all the business. Now don't -kick, Miss Ailie; say, Miss Ailie, have this little treat with us!" - -Ailie's heart was leaping. Here was the crisis--she knew it--what was -she to do? She had long anticipated some such hour, had often wrestled -with the problem whether, when it came, the world should have her Bud -without a struggle for the claims of Bell and the simple cloistered -life of the Scottish home. While yet the crisis was in prospect only she -could come to no conclusion; her own wild hungers as a girl, recalled -one night in the light of kitchen candles, had never ceased to plead -for freedom--for freedom and the space that herself had years ago -surrendered--now it was the voice of the little elder sister, and the -bell of Wanton Wully ringing at evening humble people home. - -"Just this once!" pleaded Mr. Molyneux, understanding her scruples. -Bud's face mutely pleaded. - -Yes, "just this once!"--it was all very well, but Ailie knew the dangers -of beginnings. It would not even be, in this case, a beginning; the -beginning was years ago--before the mimicry on the first New Year's -morning, before the night of the dozen candles or the creation of The -Macintosh: the child had been carried onward like a feather in a stream. - -"I really don't mind much myself," said Ailie at last, "but I fancy her -aunt Bell would scarcely like it." - -"Not if she knew I was going to do it," said Lennox, quickly; "but when -the thing was over she'd be as pleased as Punch--at least she'd laugh -the way she did when we told her I was dressed as Grandma Buntain at the -ball." - -The sound of Will Oliver's curfew died low in Ailie's mind, the -countenance of Bell grew dim; she heard, instead, the clear young voice -of Bud among the scenery and sat with an enraptured audience. "If you -are all so anxious for it, then--" she said, and the deed was done! - -She did not rue it when the night of Bud's performance came, and her -niece as the hapless young Bretagne welcomed the dauphin before the -city gates; she gloried in the natural poignancy that marked the painful -scene with Hubert come to torture, but she almost rued it when Molyneux, -having escorted them in an inexplicable silence home, broke out at last -in fervent praise of his discovery as soon as the girl had left them for -her bed. - -"I've kept clutch of myself with considerable difficulty," he said, "for -I didn't want to spoil girly's sleep or swell her head, but I want to -tell you, Millicent, and you, Miss Ailie, that _I've Found my Star!_ -Why, say, she's out of sight! She was the only actor in all that company -to-night who didn't know she was in Camberwell; she was right in the -middle of mediaeval France from start to finish, and when she was picked -up dead at the end of the fourth act she was so stone-cold and stiff -with thinking it she scared the company. I suspect, Miss Ailie, that -you're going to lose that girl!" - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -IT was a wet night in November. With a chuckle of horse's hoofs on -shining streets, Dan Dyce, with Bell and Ailie, drove from Molyneux's -fine new home to the temple of his former dreams--the proud Imperial. -They sat in silence in the darkness of the cab, and in silence drifted -into the entrance hall of the theatre to mingle with the pompous world -incongruously--with loud, vainglorious men, who bore to the eye of Bell -some spirit of abandonment and mockery, with women lovely by the gift -of God, or with dead-white faces, wax-red lips, and stealthy, sidelong -eyes. One there was who, passing before them, released a great fur cloak -from her shoulders with a sudden movement, and, as it slowly slipped -down her marble back, threatened an utter nakedness that made Bell gasp -and clutch at her sister's arm. - -"Look!" said Ailie, eagerly. Before them was a portrait of a woman in -the dress of Desdemona. The face had some suggestion that at times it -might be childlike and serene, but had been caught in a moment of alarm -and fire, and the full black eyes held in their orbs some frightful -apprehension, the slightly parted lips expressed a soul's mute cry. - -"What is it? Who is it?" asked Bell, pausing before the picture with a -stound of fear. - -"It is Bud," said Ailie, feeling proud and sorrowful--for why she could -not tell. "There is the name--'Winifred Wallace'." - -Bell wrung her hands in the shelter of her mantle and stood bewildered, -searching for the well-known lineaments. - -"Let us go up," said Dan, softly, with no heed for the jostling people, -forever self-possessed, sorrowful to guess at his sister's mind. - -"Yes, yes; let us go up out of this crowd," said Ailie, but the little -woman hung before the portrait fascinated. Round her washed the waves -of rustling garments like a surf on the shore at home; scents wafted; -English voices, almost foreign in their accent, fell upon her ear all -unnoticed since she faced the sudden revelation of what her brother's -child, her darling, had become. Seekers of pleasure, killers of -wholesome cares, froth of the idle world eddied around her chattering, -laughing, glancing curious or contemptuous at her gray, sweet face, her -homely form, her simple Sabbath garments; all her heart cried out in -supplication for the child that had too soon become a woman and wandered -from the sanctuary of home. - -"We are blocking the way here, Bell. Let us go up," again said Ailie, -gently taking her arm. - -"Yes," said her brother. "It's not a time for contemplation of the -tombs; it's not the kirkyard, Bell. You see there are many that are -anxious to get in." - -"Oh, Lennox, Lennox!" she exclaimed, indifferent to the strangers round -about her, "my brother's child! I wish--oh, I wish ye were at home! God -grant ye grace and wisdom--'then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, -and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down thou shalt not be -afraid; yea, thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet.'" - -They went up to the box that Molyneux had kept for them, to find his -wife there nursing an enormous bouquet of flowers, all white as the -driven snow. "A gorgeous house!" she told them. "Everybody that's -anybody, and in the front push. Half a hundred critics, two real Count -Vons, a lot of benzine-brougham people who never miss a first night. -There are their wives, poor dears! shining same as they were Tiffany's -windows. My! ain't our Bud going to have a happy night!" - -They sat and looked for a while in silence at the scene before them, -so pleasing to the mind that sought in crowds, in light and warmth and -gayety, its happiest associations, so wanting in the great eternal calm -and harmony that are out-of-doors in country places. Serpent eyes in -facets of gems on women's bosoms; heads made monstrous yet someway -beautiful and tempting by the barber's art; shoulders bare and bleached, -devoid of lustre; others blushing as if Eve's sudden apprehension had -survived the generations. Sleek, shaven faces, linen breastplates, -opera-glasses, flowers, fans, a murmur of voices, and the flame over all -of the enormous electrolier. - -It was the first time Bell had seen a theatre. Her first thought was one -of blame and pity. "'He looked on the city and wept'!" said she. "Oh, -Ailie, that it were over and we were home!" - -"All to see Miss Winifred Wallace!" said Mrs. Molyneux. "Think of that, -Miss Dyce--your darling niece, and she'll be so proud and happy!" - -Bell sighed. "At least she had got her own way, and I am a foolish old -countrywoman who had different plans." - -Dan said nothing. Ailie waited, too, silent, in a feverish expectation, -and from the fiddles rose a sudden melody. It seemed the only wise and -sober thing in all that humming hive of gaudy insects passing, passing, -passing. It gave a voice to human longings for a nobler, better world; -and in it, too, were memory and tears. To the people in the box it -seemed to tell Bud's story--opening in calm, sweet passages, closing in -the roll of trumpet and the throb of drum. And then the lights went down -and the curtain rose upon the street in Venice. - -The early scenes were dumb and vacant, wanting Bud's presence; there was -no play for them till she came slowly into the council chamber where sat -the senators, timidity and courage struggling in her port and visage. - -"No, no; it is not Bud," Bell whispered. "It is not our lassie; this one -is too tall and--and too deliberate. I fear she has not dared it at the -last, or that she has been found unsuitable." - -Ailie leaned forward, quivering, feeding her eyes. "It's no one else," -said she. "Dear Bud, _our_ Bud! Those two years' training may have made -her some-ways different, but she has not changed her smile. Oh, I am so -proud, and sure of her! Hus-s-sh!" - - "'... I do perceive here a divided duty; - To you I am bound for life and education, - My life and education both do learn me - How to respect you; you are the lord of duty, - I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband.'" - -Desdemona's first speech broke the stillness that had fallen on the -house; her face was pale, they saw the rapid heaving of her bosom, they -heard a moment's tremor in her voice matured and wonderful, sweet as a -silver bell. To the box where she knew her friends were sitting she let -her eyes for a second wander as she spoke the opening lines that had so -much of double meaning--not Desdemona, but the loving and wilful child -asking forgiveness, yet tenacious of her purpose. - -To Ailie came relief and happiness and pride; Dan held a watching brief -for his elder sister's prejudices and his own philosophy. Bell sat in -tears which Shakespeare did not influence. When next she saw the stage -with unblurred eyes Desdemona was leaving with the Moor. - -"My dears," said Mrs. Molyneux, "as Desdemona she's the Only One! and -Jim was right. It's worth a thousand times more trouble than he took -with her. He said all along she'd dazzle them, and I guess her fortune's -made, and it's going to be the making of this house, too. I feel so -proud and happy I'd kiss you right here, Mr. Dyce, if it wouldn't mess -up my bouquet." - -"A black man!" said Bell, regretfully. "I know it is only paint, of -course, but--but I never met him; I do not even know his name." - -It seemed as if the play had nothing in it but the words and acts of -Desdemona. At each appearance she became more confident, charged the -part with deeper feeling, found new meaning in the time-worn words. Even -Bell began to lose her private judgment, forget that it was nothing but -a sinful play, and feel some pity for Othello; but, as the knavish coils -closed round her Desdemona, the strain became unbearable. - -"Oh! I cannot stand it any longer," she exclaimed, when the voice of -Lennox quavered in the song before her last good-night, and, saying so, -pushed back her seat into the shadows of the box, covering her ears with -her fingers. She saw no more; she heard no more till the audience rose -to its feet with thunders of applause that swelled and sank and swelled -again as if it would never end. Then she dared to look, and saw a -trembling Desdemona all alone before a curtain bowing. - -"What is the matter? What is the matter? Why are they crying that way on -her?" she asked, dum-founded. - -"Why, don't you see they're mad!" said Mrs. Molyneux. - -"Oh, dear! and I thought she was doing splendidly." - -"Glad mad, I mean. She has carried them off their feet, and I'll bet Jim -Molyneux is standing on his hands behind that drop and waving his legs -in the air. Guess I needn't waste this bouquet on a girl who looks like -the morning hour in Covent Garden." - -Molyneux burst into the box in a gust of wild excitement. "Come round, -come round at once, she wants to see you," he exclaimed, and led them -deviously behind the scenes to her dressing-room. - -She stood at the door, softly crying; she looked at them--the grave old -uncle, Ailie who could understand, the little Auntie Bell--it was into -the arms of Bell she threw herself! - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -"THE talk of the whole of London! The beauteous Lady Anne herself's not -in it with her!" said Will Oliver, scratching behind his ears. "Man, is -it no' just desperate? But I'll warrant ye there's money in it, for it's -yonder folk are willing to pay well for their diversion." - -"Are you sure," said P. & A., "it's not another woman altogether? It -gives the name of Wallace in the paper." - -The bellman, sitting on a soap-box, slapped his thigh and said: "I'm -telling ye; I had it long ago from Kate MacNeill that her name on the -stage was going to be Wallace--Winifred Wallace--and there it is in -print. Tra--tragedienny, tragediennys are the head ones in the trade; -I've seen them in the shows--tr-r-r-emen-dous women!" - -The Provost, who had just stepped in to P. & A.'s for his Sunday -sweeties, smiled tolerantly and passed his taddy-box. "Bud Dyce," -said he, "is never likely to be round this way in a caravan to do the -deid-drap three times every night for front-seats sixpence. I doubt we -have seen the last of her unless we have the money and the clothes for -London theatres." - -"It's really her, then?" said the grocer. - -"You can take Wull's word for that," said the Provost, "and I have just -been talking to her uncle. Her history's in the morning paper, and I'm -the civic head of a town renowned for genius." - -Wanton Wully went out to drift along the street in the light of the -bright shop windows before which bairns played "chaps me," making choice -of treasures for their gaudiness alone, like most of us, who should know -better. He met George Jordon. "Geordie," said he, "you'll have heard -the latest? You should be in London; yon's the place for oddity," and -George, with misty comprehension, turned about for the road to London -town. Out of the inn came Colin Cleland, hurried, in his hand the -business-looking packet of tattered documents that were always his -excuse for being there. - -"Winifred Wallace--Great Tragedienny! It's a droll thing life, according -to the way you look at it. Stirring times in London, Mr. Cleland! -Changed her name to Wallace, having come of decent worthy, people. _We_ -know, but we'll not let on." - -"Not a word!" said Colin Cleland, comically. "Perhaps she may get better -and the thing blow by. Are you under the impression that celebrity's -a thing to be ashamed of? I tell you she's a credit to us all." - -"Lord bless me! do you say so?" asked Wull Oliver. "If I was a -tragedienny I would be ashamed to show my face in the place again. We -all expected something better from the wee one--she was such a caution! -It was myself, as you might say, invented her; I gave her a start at -devilment by letting her ring the New Year bell. After that she always -called me Mr. Wanton, and kindly inquired at me about my legs. She was -always quite the leddy." - -Miss Minto's shop was busy: a boy was in with a very red face demanding -the remnants that by rights should have gone home with his mother's -jacket, and the Misses Duff were buying chiffon. - -"This is startling news about young Lennox Dyce," remarked Miss Minto. -"It's caused what you might call a stir. There's not a weekly paper to -be had for love or money." - -"She was always most peculiar," said Miss Jean. "Bizarre," cooed Miss -Amelia--it was her latest adjective. - -"I was sure there was something special about in her since the very -first day I saw her," said the mantua-maker. "Yon eye, Miss Duff! And -what a sweet and confident expression! I am so glad she has pleased them -up in London; you never can depend on them. I am thinking of a novel -blouse to mark in what I think will be a pleasing way the great -occasion--the Winifred Wallace Waist I'm calling it. You remember the -clever Mr. Molyneux." - -"I doubt we never understood her," said Miss Jean. "But we make a -feature now of elocution." - -"Not that we wish to turn out great tragediennes," said Miss Amelia. -"There's happiness in humbler vocations." - -"I dare say there is," confessed Miss Minto. "I never thought of the -stage myself; my gift was always dress-making, and you wouldn't believe -the satisfaction that's in seeing a dress of mine on a woman who can -do it justice. We have all our own bit art, and that's a wonderful -consolation. But I'm _very_ glad at that girl's progress, for the sake -of Mr. Dyce--and, of course, his sisters. Miss Ailie is transported, -in the seventh heaven, and even her sister seems quite pleased. 'You'll -have a high head to-day,' I said to her when she was passing from the -coach this afternoon." - -"And what did she say to that?" inquired Miss Jean, with curiosity. - -"You know Miss Dyce! She gave a smile and said, 'But a humble heart; -it's the Dyces' motto.'" - -The doctor put his paper down, having read the great news over several -times with a singular satisfaction that surprised his sisters, who were -beat to see much glory in a state of life that meant your name on every -wall and the picture of your drawing-room every other week in 'Homely -Notes.' Drawing on his boots, he took a turn the length of the lawyer's -house. - -"Faith! London has the luck of it," he said, on entering. "I wish I -was there myself to see this wonderful Desdemona. I hope you liked your -jaunt, Miss Bell?" - -"It wasn't bad," said Bell, putting out the cards. "But, mercy on me, -what a silly way they have of baking bread in England!---all crust -outside, though I grant it's sweet enough when you break into it." -"H'm!" said Dr. Brash, "I've seen Scotch folk a bit like that. She has -rung the bell, I see; her name is made." - -"It is, they tell me," answered Bell, "but I hope it will never change -her nature." - -"She had aye a genius," said Mr. Dyce, cutting the pack for partners. - -"She had something better," said Miss Ailie, "she had love"; and on the -town broke forth the evening bell. - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bud, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUD *** - -***** This file should be named 43731.txt or 43731.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/3/43731/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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