regarded this speech with the strongest disapproval; in
fact, she had never quite approved of Madge since those unlucky words of
hers. But Mrs. Dunbar had ceased for some reason to show the same marked
regard for her opinion. It was Heriot who had again refused to hear of
her leaving, and she seemed content to win his approval.

"It was in the street," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw. "I chased it for quite
half a mile, and ran it down single-handed. I wish you had been there,
Madge. You'd have seen there was life in the old dog still!"

He had doubled the distance and forgotten the lady with the umbrella;
but then, as Andrew had remarked, a distaste for dry detail had suddenly
become characteristic of his recovered health.

"Too much life sometimes, I think!" she exclaimed coquettishly; and Mr.
Walkingshaw winked in reply.

He was inwardly as surprised at the wink as he had been at the "hullo."
These aberrations seemed to come quite spontaneously. He wished he could
understand what caused them.

"Have you had a tiring day at the office?" asked the dry Scotch voice of
his sister.

Her familiar accents instinctively banished the aberrations.

"Tolerably, tolerably," he said, with his old air. "We had the affairs
of Guthrie and Co. to settle up. I settled them, though."

"Andrew would be a great help," she replied, with an apprehensive glance
at him. She was much in her nephew's confidence at present.

"Andrew, pooh!" said his father. "He'd talk the hind leg off an
elephant. When things need settling, I just settle them myself and leave
him to grumble away to Thomieson."

Miss Walkingshaw gasped, and the widow gave the sweetest little laugh.

"Poor Andrew!" said she.

"Poor Andrew indeed," retorted her friend, with more indignation than
she had almost ever permitted herself in the presence of her formidable
brother.

He looked at her in genuine surprise. So subtly had his point of view
altered that he quite failed to grasp her cause of complaint.

"What's the matter, Mary?" he asked.

"Oh, if you don't see, what's the good in my trying to explain?"

He merely stared at her, and the widow tactfully interposed.

"Of course you are going to the match on Saturday?" said she.

"Of course, Madge."

"Have you forgotten Mr. Berstoun is coming to see you?" asked Miss
Walkingshaw.

He waved aside this objection with a dignified sweep of his hand. A
piece of cake happened to be in it, and the icing flew across the fl