skeleton case was one of the mildest punishments inflicted
upon him.

Dismay fell upon the unfortunates who remained, but their confusion was
soon ended, for Rose, with a look which they had never seen upon her
face before, dismissed them with the brief command, "Break ranks the
review is over," and walked away to Phebe.

"Confound that boy! You ought to shut him up or gag him!" fumed Charlie
irritably.

"He shall be attended to," answered poor Archie, who was trying to bring
up the little marplot with the success of most parents and guardians.

"The whole thing was deuced disagreeable," growled Steve, who felt that
he had not distinguished himself in the late engagement.

"Truth generally is," observed Mac dryly as he strolled away with his
odd smile.

As if he suspected discord somewhere, Dr. Alec proposed music at this
crisis, and the young people felt that it was a happy thought.

"I want you to hear both my birds, for they have improved immensely,
and I am very proud of them," said the doctor, twirling up the stool and
pulling out the old music books.

"I had better come first, for after you have heard the nightingale you
won't care for the canary," added Rose, wishing to put Phebe at her
ease, for she sat among them looking like a picture, but rather shy and
silent, remembering the days when her place was in the kitchen.

"I'll give you some of the dear old songs you used to like so much. This
was a favorite, I think," and sitting down she sang the first familiar
air that came, and sang it well in a pleasant, but by no means finished,
manner.

It chanced to be "The Birks of Aberfeldie," and vividly recalled the
time when Mac was ill and she took care of him. The memory was sweet to
her, and involuntarily her eye wandered in search of him. He was not
far away, sitting just as he used to sit when she soothed his most
despondent moods astride of a chair with his head down on his arms, as
if the song suggested the attitude. Her heart quite softened to him as
she looked, and she decided to forgive him if no one else, for she was
sure that he had no mercenary plans about her tiresome money.

Charlie had assumed a pensive air and fixed his fine eyes upon her with
an expression of tender admiration, which made her laugh in spite of all
her efforts to seem unconscious of it. She was both amused and annoyed
at his very evident desire to remind her of certain sentimental passages
in the last year of their girl-