ons into the garden to put together autumn nosegays
for the vases--finally discovering that Ethel's potichomanie vases on
the staircase window must have some red and brown leaves.

She did not come back quite so soon with them, and Mrs. Arnott, slyly
looking out of window, reported, "Ha! he is come then! At least, I see
the little thing has found--"

"Something extremely unlike itself," said Dr. May, laughing. "Something
I could easily set down as a student at Edinburgh; thirty years ago.
That's the very smile! I remember dear Maggie being more angry than I
ever saw her before, because Mr. Fleet said that you smiled to show your
white teeth."

"That is the best shadow of Maggie I ever saw," said Dr. May. "She has
taught the lad to smile. That is what I call a pretty sight!"

"Come, Richard, it is a shame for old folks like us to stand spying
them!"

"They care very little for me," said Dr. May, "but I shall have them
in. Cold winds blowing about that little head! Ah! here they are. Fine
leaves you gather, miss! Very red and brown."

Meta rather liked, than otherwise, those pretty teasings of Dr. May,
but they always made Norman colour extremely, and he parried them by
announcing news. "No, not the Bucephalus, a marriage in high life, a
relation."

"Not poor Mary!" cried Ethel.

"Mary! what could make you think of her?"

"As a hen thinks of her ducklings when they go into waters beyond her
ken," said Ethel. "Well, as long as it is not Mary, I don't care!"

"High life!" repeated Meta. "Oh, it can be only Agatha Langdale."

"There's only Lord Cosham further to guess," said Ethel.

"Eh! why not young Ogilvie?" said Dr. May. "I am right, I see. Well, who
is the lady?"

"A Miss Dunbar--a nice girl that I met at Glenbracken. Her property fits
in with theirs, and I believe his father has been wishing it for a long
time."

"It does not sound too romantic," said Meta.

"He writes as if he had the sense of having been extremely dutiful,"
said Norman.

"No doubt thinking it needful in addressing a namesake, who has had an
eye to the main chance," said the doctor. "Don't throw stones, young
people."

"Well!" exclaimed Meta; "he did not look as if he would go and do such a
stupid thing as that!"

"Probably, it is anything but a stupid thing," said Dr. May.

"You are using him very ill among you," said Norman eagerly. "I believe
her to be excellent in every way; he has known her from childhood;
he writes as i