n to feel my wings growing!"

"Was it a pleasant feeling?" enquired Helmsley, jocosely.

"Yes--it _was_!" replied Angus, clenching his right hand and bringing it
down on his knee with emphasis; "whether they were goose wings or eagle
wings didn't matter--the pricking of the budding quills was an _alive_
sensation! The mountains, the burns, the glens, all had something to say
to me--or I thought they had--something new, vital and urgent. God
Himself seemed to have some great command to impose upon me--and I was
ready to hear and obey. I began to write--first verse--then prose--and
by and by I got one or two things accepted here and there--not very
much, but still enough to fire me to further endeavours. Then one
summer, when I was taking a holiday at a little village near Loch
Lomond, I got the final dig of the spur of fate--I fell in love."

Mary raised her eyes again and looked at him. A slow smile parted her
lips.

"And did the girl fall in love with you?" she asked.

"For a time I believe she did,"--said Reay, and there was an under-tone
of whimsical amusement in his voice as he spoke--"She was spending the
summer in Scotland with her mother and father, and there wasn't anything
for her to do. She didn't care for scenery very much--and I just came
in as a sort of handy man to amuse her. She was a lovely creature in
her teens,--I thought she was an angel--till--till I found her out."

"And then?" queried Helmsley.

"Oh well, then of course I was disillusioned. When I told her that I
loved her more than anything else in the world, she laughed ever so
sweetly, and said, 'I'm sure you do!' But when I asked her if she loved
_me_, she laughed again, and said she didn't know what I was talking
about--she didn't believe in love. 'What do you believe in?' I asked
her. And she looked at me in the prettiest and most innocent way
possible, and said quite calmly and slowly--'A rich marriage.' And my
heart gave a great dunt in my side, for I knew it was all over. 'Then
you won't marry _me_?'--I said--'for I'm only a poor journalist. But I
mean to be famous some day!' 'Do you?' she said, and again that little
laugh of hers rippled out like the tinkle of cold water--'Don't you
think famous men are very tiresome? And they're always dreadfully poor!'
Then I took hold of her hands, like the desperate fool I was, and kissed
them, and said, 'Lucy, wait for me just a few years! Wait for me! You're
so young'--for she was only sevent