music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do make
a failure here 'n' there," he thought. "The bairn is a' right." The
mother's heart was at rest also.

"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'll go through
as it's begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella was
saying behind her placid smile.

"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought old Dalgetty,
ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well."

"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought Little
Bel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believe
he'll ask any o' his botherin' questions."

What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth,
probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to think
anything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, but
sat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between his
knees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternately
on the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first fright
was over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure and
dignity of an experienced instructor.

The exercises were simple,--declamations, reading of selected
compositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervals
came songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening chorus
was "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." At the first bars of this Sandy
Bruce could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in a
deep bass voice, untrained but sweet.

"Ah," thought Little Bel, "what'll he say to the last one, I wonder?"

When the time came she found out. If she had chosen the arrangement of
her music with full knowledge of Sandy Bruce's preferences, and with the
express determination to rouse him to a climax of enthusiasm, she could
not have done better.

When the end of the simple programme of recitations and exhibition had
been reached, she came forward to the edge of the platform--her cheeks
were deep pink now, and her eyes shone with excitement--and said,
turning to the trustees and spectators: "We have finished, now, all we
have to show for our year's work, and we will close our entertainment by
singing 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!'"

"Ay, ay! that wi' we!" shouted Sandy Bruce, again leaping to his feet;
and as the first of the grand chords of that grand old tune rang out
full and loud under Little Bel's firm touch, he strode forward to th