t leaped Gibbie from behind it, and threw
his arms about him.

"Eh, cratur! ye gae me sic a fleg!" said Donal. "But, losh! they hae
made a gentleman o' ye a'ready!" he added, holding him at arms
length, and regarding him with wonder and admiration.

A notable change had indeed passed upon Gibbie, mere externals
considered, in that fortnight. He was certainly not so picturesque
as before, yet the alteration was entirely delightful to Donal.
Perhaps he felt it gave a good hope for the future of his own
person. Mrs. Sclater had had his hair cut; his shirt was of the
whitest of linen, his necktie of the richest of black silk, his
clothes were of the newest cut and best possible fit, and his boots
perfect: the result was altogether even to her satisfaction. In one
thing only was she foiled: she could not get him to wear gloves. He
had put on a pair, but found them so miserably uncomfortable that,
in merry wrath, he pulled them off on the way home, and threw
them--"The best kid!" exclaimed Mrs. Sclater--over the Pearl Bridge.
Prudently fearful of over-straining her influence, she yielded for
the present, and let him go without.

Mr. Sclater also had hitherto exercised prudence in his demands upon
Gibbie--not that he desired anything less than unlimited authority
with him, but, knowing it would be hard to enforce, he sought to
establish it by a gradual tightening of the rein, a slow
encroachment of law upon the realms of disordered license. He had
never yet refused to do anything he required of him, had executed
entirely the tasks he set him, was more than respectful, and always
ready; yet somehow Mr. Sclater could never feel that the lad was
exactly obeying him. He thought it over, but could not understand
it, and did not like it, for he was fond of authority. Gibbie in
fact did whatever was required of him from his own delight in
meeting the wish expressed, not from any sense of duty or of
obligation to obedience. The minister had no perception of what the
boy was, and but a very small capacity for appreciating what was
best in him, and had a foreboding suspicion that the time would come
when they would differ.

He had not told him that he was going to meet the coach, but Gibbie
was glad to learn from Mrs. Sclater that such was his intention, for
he preferred meeting Donal at his lodging. He had recognized the
place at once from the minister's mention of it to his wife, having
known the shop and its ow