into a corner, there was a pile of newspapers upon
it. A great sob escaped her. For a minute she pressed her hands
tightly together over her eyes, then she hurriedly opened a book on
"Electricity," and began to read as if for her life.

She was roused in about an hour's time by a laughing exclamation. She
started, and looking up, saw her cousin Tom.

"Talk about absorption, and brown studies!" he cried, "why, you eat
everything I ever saw. I've been looking at you for at least three
minutes."

Tom was now about nineteen; he had inherited the auburn coloring of the
Raeburns, but otherwise he was said to be much more like the Craigies.
He was nice looking, but somewhat freckled, and though he was tall and
strongly built, he somehow betrayed that he had led a sedentary life and
looked, in fact, as if he wanted a training in gymnastics. For the
rest he was shrewd, business-like, good-natured, and at present very
conceited. He had been Erica's friend and playfellow as long as she
could remember; they were brother and sister in all but the name, for
they had lived within a stone's throw of each other all their lives, and
now shared the same house.

"I never heard you come in," she said, smiling a little. "You must have
been very quiet."

"I don't believe you'd hear a salute fired in the next room if you were
reading, you little book worm! But look here; I've got a parody on the
chieftain that'll make you cry with laughing. You remember the smashed
windows at the meeting at Rilchester last week?"

Erica remembered well enough, she had felt sore and angry about it, and
the comments in the newspapers had not been consolatory. She had learned
to dread even the comic papers; but there was nothing spiteful in the
one which Tom produced that evening. It was headed:

Scotch song (Tune--"Twas within a mile of Edinboro'town")

"Twas within a hall of Rilchester town,
In the bleak spring-time of the year,
Luke Raeburn gave a lecture on the soul of man,
And found that it cost him dear.
Windows all were smashed that day,
They said: 'The atheist can pay.'
But Scottish Raeburn, frowning cried:
'Na, na, it winna do,
I canna, canna, winna, winna, munna pay for you.'"

The parody ran on through the three verses of the song, the conclusion
was really witty, and there was no sting in it. Erica laughed over it as
she had not laughed for weeks. Tom, who had been trying unsuccessfully
to ch