ng my mother.'

'Wait a bit, Neil,' said the doctor, laying a detaining hand upon the
lad's shoulder; 'not so suddenly, if you please; I will go with you and
prepare her,' and the two left the house together.

'But Mrs. Macdonnell, Mummie,' said Tricksy, with a quivering lip, 'do
you--do you think she'll die?'

'Not she,' said the laird, coming forward; 'happiness has never killed
any one yet, and a little of that is what Mrs. Macdonnell was wanting.
But where is the hero of the day; the one who found out what no one
else has been able to discover! We have not congratulated him yet.'

'We do, we do,' they all cried; and they laid forcible hands upon
Hamish, who had retired into the background with a very red face,
carried him out of doors and chaired him triumphantly round the
courtyard.

'But _Hamish_,' said Harry later in the day, his eyes bright with
astonishment; 'to think that after all it was Hamish who did it!'

'Why not?' inquired Allan gruffly.

'Why, he's such a quiet fellow, one never thinks of his doing anything.
If it had been you or me now, or Reggie, or even Marjorie (although
Marjorie's far too conceited for a girl); but Hamish!'

Marjorie had caught some of the last words, and she turned upon the boy
like lightning.

'Ever heard the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise?' she queried. 'If
not you'll find it in the Third Reading Book. Perhaps you're not as
far as that yet though.'

Still Harry found the matter hard to understand, and during several
days, he was frequently to be observed sitting on dykes and
contemplating Hamish, who shared the honours of the time with Neil.

'Only a few days now,' observed Tricksy regretfully, 'and there will be
an end of all the fun. Every one's going to school except me, and
there will be no boating or fishing or playing at pirates any more.'

'What about next year, Tricksy?' said Marjorie.

'Next year! Why, you'll be grown-up by then. Your mother said you
must be sent to school to learn to be less of a tomboy.'

'I won't be less of a tomboy,' declared Marjorie. 'I'm going to fish,
and climb rocks and ride ponies bare-backed, and do all those kinds of
things until I'm ever so old. We'll have better fun than ever, now we
have Neil back again. I vote we make a Compact----'

'We've made one already,' interposed Tricksy.

'Well, a new one then. We'll call it a League;--the Adventure
League--and we'll promise to come back every year. Harry and Ger