ice, firm, quiet, commanding, saved the situation. She
turned to Mr. Coulson and remarked, in her stateliest manner, that it
had been a wonderful rain, just such a downpour as they had in
Edinburgh the day after Lady Gordon called--she who was the wife of Sir
William Gordon--their cousin for whom her brother had been called.

Young Mr. Coulson seized upon the subject with a mighty interest, and
plunged into a description of a terrible storm that had swept over Lake
Simcoe in his grandfather's days--thunder and hail and blackness. The
storm cleared the atmosphere at the table, and Annie's cheeks were
becoming cool again, when the young man brought the deluge upon himself
in the most innocent manner.

"There are signs of it yet," he went on. "Did you ever see the old
log-house at the first jog in the Ridge Road?" he inquired of Malcolm.
"Well, there are holes in the chimney yet where the lightning came
through. I can remember my grandfather lifting me up to look at them.
He kept tavern there in the bad old days," he added cordially, "but the
Coulsons have become quite respectable since."

There was another silence deeper than the last. Even young Archie,
smothering himself with a huge slab of bread and butter and caring
little about anything else, understood that to be related to a
tavern-keeper placed one far beyond the pale of respectability. Annie
was looking at her lap now, all her rosiness gone. The young man
glanced about him half-puzzled, and Miss Gordon again saved the day by
introducing a genteel word about Edinburgh and Lady Gordon.

But, as they left the table, she decided that again her home-going must
be postponed until all danger of a Gordon uniting with the grandson of
a tavern-keeper was passed.

CHAPTER II

THE WILD STREAK

The valley where the Gordons lived had narrowly escaped having a
village at the corner. The surrounding district held all the
requirements of one, but they did not happen to be placed near enough
to one another. At the cross-roads in the center of the valley stood a
store and post-office. But the blacksmith's shop, which should have
been opposite, was missing. In the early days the blacksmith, being a
Highland Scot, had refused to work opposite the storekeeper, who was
only a Lowlander, and had set up his business over on the proud
seclusion of the next concession. The school, too, had got mislaid
somehow, away to the south out of sight. So the valley was lef