much more interesting
than I thought it would be. It's about you and me."

"You and me?" echoed Duncan, who was of a matter-of-fact mind, and was
always content with things just as he found them.

"Yes, stupid," said Elsie, crossly; "I always said mother favoured
Robbie, and so she does. Why he has new things much oftener than you,
and you're older too. Do you and me have boots and stockings for
week-a-days? then why should Robbie? Don't you wonder why mother pets
him so?"

"No," Duncan answered truthfully. "He's ever so much more babyish than
me."

"Well, I say it's a shame," continued Elsie. "Look at this old
sun-bonnet. Do you think I ought to wear such a thing as that? Didn't I
always say I'd love a long feather like the ladies at the manse? and why
shouldn't I have one, and a silk pelisse, and gloves upon my hands, and
sweet little shoes for walking in?"

"Why, you'd be just a lady," Duncan said.

Elsie laughed a pleased soft laugh. "A lady, just a bonny lady," she
said over to herself; "and wouldn't you love to be a little laird,
Duncan?"

"I don't know what it's like, Elsie," Duncan said thoughtfully.

"It isn't like fetching milk and sleeping in a loft," Elsie said
sharply. "It isn't like porridge for breakfast and porridge for supper.
It would be like----everything that's nice," she said, after a minute or
two's pause, for she really did not know anything about it, and was
suddenly pulled up in her description by that fact.

CHAPTER III.--THE LETTER.

The boy walked along, silently thinking over what Elsie had been saying,
in a muddly, confused sort of way. Robbie, and granny's letter, and
Elsie's beating, lairds and ladies, and something secret and mysterious
that Elsie knew, were mingled hazily in his mind, in such chaotic
fashion that he had nothing to say, not knowing how to put his ideas
into the form of a question.

It was not until they were on their road home again that he suddenly
asked, "Whose letter is it, Elsie?"

"What do you mean?" Elsie returned, with more than usual quickness. "I
say it's mine and yours. Mother'd say 'twas hers, most likely; perhaps
granny might say 'twas hers; I say it's ours as much as ever it's
theirs, and the person what wrote it is our father; so there, Duncan."

"Mine too!" Duncan echoed, in greater bewilderment than before. "Then,
if it's mine too, Elsie--

"Well, what?"

"I ought to read it, an' see what's in it."

Elsie laughed. "Of course you o