ing cheerfully! Try to forget that `sad' rhymes
with `glad,' and don't feel it necessary to end in the minor key. That
rhyming business has a lot to answer for. I like you best when you are
content to be your natural, cheerful self!"

"You think, then--you do think--some of them a little good?"

Ron's wistful voice would have melted a heart of stone. The Chieftain
laid a hand on his arm with a very kindly pressure.

"There are some of 'em," he said cheerfully, "which are a lot better
than others. I'm not partial to amateur verses myself, but I don't mind
telling you for your comfort that I've seen worse, before now--
considerably worse!"

Poor Ron! It was bitter comfort. In the blessed privacy of his own
room he sat himself down to read over the pages of the little black book
with painful criticism, asking himself miserably if it were really true
that they were feeble amateur efforts, tinged with pretence and
unreality. Here and there a flush and a wince proved that the
accusation had gone home, when a vigorous pencil mark on the side of the
page marked the necessity for correction, but on the whole he could
honestly refute the charge; could declare, with the bold yet humble
conviction of the true craftsman, that it was good work; work well done;
work worth doing!

The dreamy brown eyes sent out a flash of determination.

"I _can_!" said Ron to himself. "And I _will_!"

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A MOUNTAIN MIST.

Three days later a wagonette was chartered from Rew, to drive the
diminished party to the scene of the haunted castle. Margot felt rather
shy in the position of the only lady, but a mild proposition that she
should stay at home had been so vigorously vetoed that she had nothing
more to say.

"If one clergyman, plus one brother, plus one bald-headed veteran,
aren't sufficient chaperons for one small girl, things are coming to a
pretty pass indeed!" protested the Chieftain vigorously. "If you stay
at home, we _all_ stay, so that's settled, and the disappointment and
upset will be on your head. Why all this fuss, I should like to know?
One might think you were shy."

Margot pouted, and wriggled her shoulders inside her white blouse.

"I _am_ shy!"

"You are, are you? Hadn't noticed it before. Of whom, if one may ask?"

She turned at that, and walked back to the inn, nose in air, but
thereafter there were no more demurs.

It was indeed a very decorous little party which sat in two ro