gathered in the drawing-room.

"Gude morning to you," he said, rubbing his hands and beaming on them
from under his shaggy eyebrows. "I'm verra glad to see the lads and
lassies once more. The wife was only saying last week that in another
year they'd be scattered to the four ends of the earth. And is this the
young lad who picked up the drowning lassies out of the lake? Shake
hands, boy. It was a brave and bonny thing to do."

"Any man would have done it in my place, doctor," said Jimmy, grasping
the big hand warmly.

"Not any man, but some would. Andy and Larry, I make no doubt, and that
wild buffalo, Dodo."

Dodo didn't mind being called a wild buffalo by the doctor if only he
was given the credit of courage at the same time, but Mrs. McLean
objected.

"Now, doctor," she said, "you mustn't call your guests ugly names. You
know I won't permit it at all."

"Don't scold him, Mrs. McLean," said Dodo. "I think it's better to be
called a wild buffalo than a wild boar."

"A bore is never wild, if that's the kind you mean," answered Mrs.
McLean. "That's why they are bores, because they are so tame."

"Mither, mither," put in the doctor, laughing, "how you go on. As if
you'd like 'em any way but tame. She's a great talker, Mr. Lufton, as
you'll perceive before the morning's half over, but she doesn't mean the
half she says, like every other woman under the sun."

Jimmy laughed. How delightful it was to him to be among these gay,
simple-hearted people who found a good deal of enjoyment in life without
the aid of things he had been accustomed to. Presently he heard Andy
McLean's voice saying:

"Miss Brown, Mr. Lufton," and turning quickly, he confronted a tall
slender girl with very blue eyes and red-gold hair. Miss Brown smiled a
heavenly smile and gave him her hand.

"I'm glad to meet you," she said. "I've been hearing a great deal about
you in the last few hours."

The soft musical quality of her voice stirred Jimmy's soul.

"It's like the harp in the orchestra. When a hand sweeps over the harp
strings, you can hear it above all the trumpets and drums, it's so--so
ineffably sweet, only there's never enough of it."

All this Jimmy thought as he exchanged Molly's greetings.

"Are you from the South?" he asked later when he found himself beside
her at the breakfast table.

"I'm from Kentucky," she answered promptly and proudly.

"So am I," he almost shouted, and then they exchanged new glances of
deeper int