en coming here as regular as
the milkman for a month past----"

"Oh, come now!--Only once a day. I've an idea milkie comes twice, and
besides----"

"And what did ye come for, my lad?" with an emphatic nod and a
menacing shake of the frail white hand, pricelessly jewelled above,
comfortably black-silk-mittened below. "Tell me that now! What did ye
come for?"

"To see the dearest old lady in England--Britain, I mean. And--"

"Yes?--And?--" and she watched him, with her head a little on one side
and her eyes shining brightly, like an expectant motherly robin
hopping on treasure trove.

He smiled back at her and said nothing. He knew she knew without his
telling.

"And so I was only second fiddle--" she began, with an assumption of
scornful irascibility which became her less than her very oldest cap.

"Oh, dear me, no! Leader of the orchestra!--Proprietor of the
house!--Sole director and manager and--"

"Tuts! It was Margaret Brandt you came to see," and the twinkling
brown eyes held the merry gray ones with a steady challenge.

"Partly,--and I was just about to say so when you interrupted me--"

"Ay! Were you now? Ye can out with things quick enough at times, my
laddie!"

"Well, you see, there are some things one does not speak about until
one feels one has an absolute right to."

"You'd have told your mother, Jock."

"Perhaps, I'm not sure,--not yet--not, at all events, until--"

"And wasn't I to take her place when she left you all alone?"

"And so you have. You're just the dearest and sweetest old--"

"Second fiddle! Come away and we'll talk of Margaret, since that's all
you come for."

"And isn't she worth coming for? Did you ever in all your life see
anything more wonderful than Margaret Brandt?"

And she looked at him for half a minute with a twinkle in the shrewd
old eyes, which had surely seen many strange and wonderful things
since the first wonders passed and gave place to the common things of
life. Beautiful eyes they were still,--of a very tender brown, and
shining always with kindly feeling and deepest interest in the person
she was talking to.

I do not know how it may be with you, but, personally, I detest people
whose eyes and thoughts go wandering away over your left shoulder
while you are talking with them. It may be, of course, that you are
not much of a talker and are simply boring them, but, all the same,
mental squinters are not to my liking.

But Lady Elspeth was never bore