ut David at Oxford,
and Jean was only too delighted to tell every single detail.

"And how is my dear Jock? He is my favourite."

"Not the Mhor?" asked Pamela.

"No. Mhor is 'a'body's body.' He will never lack for admirers. But Jock
is my own boy. We've been friends since he came home from India, a
white-headed baby with the same surprised blue eyes that he has now. He
was never out of scrapes at home, but he was always good with me. I
suppose I was flattered by that."

"Jock," said Jean, "is very nearly the nicest thing in the world, and
the funniest. This morning Mrs. M'Cosh caught a mouse alive in a trap,
and Jock, while dressing, heard her say she would drown it. Down he
went, like an avalanche in pyjamas, drove Mrs. M'Cosh into the scullery,
and let the mouse away in the garden. He would fight any number of boys
of any size for an ill-treated animal. In fact, all his tenderness is
given to dumb animals. He has no real liking for mortals. They affront
him with their love-making and their marriages. He has to leave the room
when anything bordering on sentiment is read aloud. 'Tripe,' he calls it
in his low way. _Do_ you remember his scorn of knight-errants who
rescued distressed damsels? They seemed to him so little worth
rescuing."

"I never cared much for sentiment myself," said Mrs. Hope. "I wouldn't
give a good adventure yarn for all the love-stories ever written."

"Mother remains very boyish," said Augusta. "She likes something vivid
in the way of crime."

"And now," said her mother, "you are laughing at an old done woman,
which is very unseemly. Come and sit beside me, Miss Reston, and tell me
what you think of Priorsford."

"Oh," said Pamela, drawing a low chair to the side of her hostess,
"it's not for me to talk about Priorsford. They tell me you know more
about it than anyone."

"Do I? Well, perhaps; anyway, I love it more than most. I've lived here
practically all my life, and my forbears have been in the countryside
for generations, and that all counts. Priorsford ... I sometimes stand
on the bridge and look and look, and tell myself that I feel like a
mother to it."

"I know," said Pamela. "There is something very appealing about a little
town: I never lived in one before."

"But," said Mrs. Hope, jealous as a mother for her own, "I think there
is something very special about Priorsford. There are few towns as
beautiful. The way the hills cradle it, and Peel Tower stands guard over
it, an