very sparing of breath
when he repeated poetry, making one breath last so long that the end of
the verse was reached in a breathless whisper--in this instance very
effective.

"So that is what 'Jean' teaches you," said Pamela. "I should like to
see Jean."

"Well," said Mhor, "come in with me now and see her. I should be doing
my lessons anyway, and you can tell her where I've been."

"Won't she think me rather pushing?" Pamela asked.

"Oh, I don't know," said Mhor carelessly. "Jean's kind to
everybody--tramps and people who sing in the street and little cats with
no homes. Hadn't you better put on your hat?"

So Pamela obediently put on her hat and coat and went with her new
friends down the road a few steps and up the flagged path to the front
door of the funny little house that kept its back turned to its parvenu
neighbours, and its eyes lifted to the hills.

In Mhor led her, Peter following hard behind, through a square,
low-roofed entrance-hall with a polished floor, into a long room with
one end coming to a point in an odd-shaped window, rather like the bow
of a ship.

A girl was sitting in the window with a large basket of darning beside
her.

"Jean," cried Mhor as he burst in, "here's the Honourable. I asked her
to come in and see you. She's afraid of Bella Bathgate."

"Oh, do come in," said Jean, standing up with the stocking she was
darning over one hand. "Take this chair; it's the most comfortable. I do
hope Mhor hasn't been worrying you?"

"Indeed he hasn't," said Pamela; "I was delighted to see him. But
please don't let me interrupt your work."

"The boys make such big holes," said Jean, picking up a damp
handkerchief that lay beside her; and then with a tremble in her voice,
"I've been crying," she added.

"So I see," said Pamela. "I'm sorry. Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing in the least wrong," Jean said, swallowing hard, "only that I'm
so silly." And presently she found herself pouring out her troubled
thoughts about David, about the lions that she feared stood in his path
at Oxford, about the hole his going made in the little household at The
Rigs. It was a comfort to tell it all to this delightful-looking
stranger who seemed to understand in the most wonderful way.

"I remember when my brother Biddy went to Oxford," Pamela told her. "I
felt just as you do. Our parents were dead, and I was five years older
than my brother, and took care of him just as you do of your David. I
was afraid fo