ked life had been like that song. He
was always striving for the heights, often slipping back, frequently
failing just as the top was reached, but ever starting off again with
renewed hope and faith, and in the end always attaining.

There was a wild patter of feet down the lane, and a harum-scarum girl,
half woman, half child, came scrambling recklessly over the fence, and
tumbled upon the ground at his feet. She sprang up and tossed her hair
back from her handsome, mischievous face.

"He's coming!" she announced tragically. "Where'll I hide? I saw him
paddlin' across the creek like a silly old gosling!"

Uncle Hughie's golden-brown eyes danced with laughter.

"Hoots, toots! Och, hoch, but it is the foolish lass you will be!
Poor Davy, ech, poor lad! When I would be going sparkin' the lassies,
it wasn't running away they would be."

"Oh, but then you must have been so handsome and so fine, Uncle
Hughie," said the girl diplomatically. "If I go up into the village
will you tell mother you said I might?"

Uncle Hughie was not impervious to flattery, but he looked doubtful.
Running up into the village in the evening was strictly forbidden to
the younger members of the Cameron household.

"I'll jump into the pond if he comes," she declared. "Go on, Uncle
Hughie. Aw, haven't you got some errand for me?"

"Well, well," said the old man indulgently, "let me see. Oh, yes, now.
You might jist be stepping up to Sandy McQuarry's and tell him not to
be forgetting that this is the night to go and see poor John McIntyre."

"Goody! You're a duck, Uncle Hughie. John McIntyre--isn't that the
tramp you found in the hollow?"

"Yes; but indeed I will be thinking that it's no ordinary tramp he will
be, whatever. Poor man, eh, eh, poor buddy. If ever the Lord would be
laying His hand heavier on a man than He did on Job, that man's John
McIntyre, or I will be mistaken. Ay, and it would be a fine Hielan'
name, too--McIntyre."

The girl danced away up the street, dodging skilfully from tree to
tree, and keeping a sharp eye on the figure climbing leisurely up the
bank of the ravine.

"Don't be forgetting, Jeannie, child," the old man called after her,
"not to let Sandy know the minister will be coming."

The girl nodded over her shoulder, and Uncle Hughie continued his talk
to the milkstand.

"Ay, yes, oh, yes indeed. The peety of it, the peety of it. Well,
well. Hoots! The Almighty will be knowing all about y