ies and dresses? Of
course I like to look well--every woman does, and if she pretends
otherwise she 's a hypocrite; but money just seems to make some women
hideous. It is enough for me to have you all to myself up in your old
home, and to see you enjoying the rest you have earned. We'll be as
happy as two lovers, dad," and Kate threw an arm round her father's
neck and kissed him.

"We have to change here," as the train began to slow; "prepare to see
the most remarkable railway in the empire, and a guard to correspond."
And then it came upon them, the first sight that made a Drumtochty
man's heart warm, and assured him that he was nearing home.

An engine on a reduced scale, that had once served in the local goods
department of a big station, and then, having grown old and asthmatic,
was transferred on half-pay, as it were, to the Kildrummie branch,
where it puffed between the junction and the terminus half a dozen
times a day, with two carriages and an occasional coal truck. Times
there were when wood was exported from Kildrummie, and then the train
was taken down in detachments, and it was a pleasant legend that, one
market day, when Drumtochty was down in force, the engine stuck, and
Drumsheugh invited the Glen to get out and push. The two carriages
were quite distinguished in construction, and had seen better days.
One consisted of a single first-class compartment in the centre, with a
bulge of an imposing appearance, supported on either side by two
seconds. As no native ever travelled second, one compartment had been
employed as a reserve to the luggage van, so that Drumtochty might have
a convenient place of deposit for calves, but the other was jealously
reserved by Peter Bruce for strangers with second-class tickets, that
his branch might not be put to confusion. The other carriage was
three-fourths third class and one-fourth luggage, and did the real
work; on its steps Peter stood and dispensed wisdom, between the
junction and Kildrummie.

But neither the carriages nor the engine could have made history
without the guard, beside whom the guards of the main line--even of the
expresses that ran to London--were as nothing--fribbles and weaklings.
For the guard of the Kildrummie branch was absolute ruler, lording it
over man and beast without appeal, and treating the Kildrummie
stationmaster as a federated power. Peter was a short man of great
breadth, like unto the cutting of an oak-tree, with a penetrat