the
Italian boy, and his song?"

Here was one of those tests of her memory for trifles, applied with a
child's happy abruptness, for which Ovid had been waiting. He listened
eagerly. To his unutterable relief, Carmina laughed.

"Of course I remember it!" she said. "Who could forget the boy who sings
and grins and says _Gimmeehaypenny?"_

"That's it!" cried Zo. "The boy's song was a good one in its way. I've
learnt a better in Scotland. You've heard of Donald, haven't you?"

"No."

Zo turned indignantly to her father. "Why didn't you tell her of
Donald?"

Mr. Gallilee humbly admitted that he was in fault. Carmina asked who
Donald was, and what he was like. Zo unconsciously tested her memory for
the second time.

"You know that day," she said, "when Joseph had an errand at the
grocer's and I went along with him, and Miss Minerva said I was a vulgar
child?"

Carmina's memory recalled this new trifle, without an effort. "I know,"
she answered; "you told me Joseph and the grocer weighed you in the
great scales."

Zo delighted Ovid by trying her again. "When they put me into the
scales, Carmina, what did I weigh?"

"Nearly four stone, dear."

"Quite four stone. Donald weighs fourteen.' What do you think of that?"

Mr. Gallilee once more offered his testimony. "The biggest Piper on my
lord's estate," he began, "comes of a Highland family, and was removed
to the Lowlands by my lord's father. A great player--"

"And _my_ friend," Zo explained, stopping her father in full career. "He
takes snuff out of a cow's horn. He shovels it up his fat nose with a
spoon, like this. His nose wags. He says, 'Try my sneeshin.' Sneeshin's
Scotch for snuff. He boos till he's nearly double when uncle Northlake
speaks to him. Boos is Scotch for bows. He skirls on the pipes--skirls
means screeches. When you first hear him, he'll make your stomach ache.
You'll get used to that--and you'll find you like him. He wears a purse
and a petticoat; he never had a pair of trousers on in his life; there's
no pride about him. Say you're my friend and he'll let you smack his
legs--"

Here, Ovid was obliged to bring the biography of Donald to a close.
Carmina's enjoyment of Zo was becoming too keen for her strength;
her bursts of laughter grew louder and louder--the wholesome limit of
excitement was being rapidly passed. "Tell us about your cousins," he
said, by way of effecting a diversion.

"The big ones?" Zo asked.

"No; the little ones,