The elder man in the buggy, a stout, good-natured looking fellow,
lazily blew a whiff of smoke from his cigar and smiled in a superior
way. "Mr. Huntley," he said, turning to the young man at his side,
"when Mr. Coulson enters your office, I'm afraid you're going to have
trouble drilling him into the mysteries of meum and tuum as interpreted
by the law."

"Yes, as interpreted by the law," repeated Mr. Coulson rather hotly.
"The law sometimes speaks in a foreign language. If I thought my study
of it was going to warp my ideas of right and wrong I'd go back home
and pitch hay for the rest of my life."

The young man in the carriage looked at him closely. He was a handsome
young fellow, about Mr. Coulson's own age, with a clever, clean-cut
face. "There's something in your contention, John," he said, "but I'm
acting for my client remember, and he has his ideas of right and wrong,
too. He's paying for the place."

The young teacher's face fell, and old Sandy McLachlan, who had been
watching him with eyes pitifully anxious, came a step nearer.

"They will not be turning me off?" he asked, half-fearfully,
half-defiantly. "I would be working on this place for twenty years.
Mr. Jarvis would be telling me it will be mine, as long as I live. And
what will become of me and my little Eppie?"

"Well, well, Mr. McLachlan," said the jolly-looking man, not losing a
whit of his jollity at the sight of the old man's distress. "Well,
well, we won't discuss the matter any further to-day. You won't be
disturbed until the fall anyway. And Mr. Huntley here will see that
justice is done, whatever happens. He's one of the cleverest young
lawyers in Cheemaun, you know."

"Hech!" interrupted old Sandy, his eyes blazing. "Yes, it is that I
will be fearing. The Lord peety the man that will be falling into the
hands of a clever lawyer!"

The comfortable-looking man seemed to take this as a grand joke. He
laughed heartily and dug his elbow into the side of his young
companion. "Hear that, Blake? Ha, ha! you lawyers deserve all you
get. Ha! ha! that's good!"

The young man at his side did not reply to the raillery. He was
looking past Mr. Coulson at the group of four children, standing
open-mouthed, gazing at the men, and breathlessly listening to every
word. He was particularly struck with the smallest one, a little girl
in a torn, berry-stained blue pinafore and a sunbonnet of the same
material. Her two small brown ha