use his being led away by
rosebud innocence! It was engaged, and if he were wise he would be true
to his love for the full-blown rose.

"Just think, pet, what an honour to be taken about by such famous people
as Basil Norman and Aline West," she went on, "and to have them for your
best friends. You'd have had a horrid dull time with them gone, for I
should have had to leave you alone a lot. And next week, when they bring
you back to me at Glasgow, your future will be all beautifully
arranged."

"But Mrs. West isn't well enough to go to-morrow----" Barrie pleaded.

"No. But Mrs. Vanneck will chaperon you for a few days. You ought to be
frightfully happy, seeing Scotland with those you love while your poor
Barbara works for her daily bread. And now you must go out in front
again with Mr. Norman, if you don't want to miss the beginning of the
second act. Mr. Bennett has seen it, so he can stop with me five minutes
if he likes, till my call."

Barrie had been at rehearsal, and would no doubt have been quite willing
to miss any part of the play not graced by Mrs. Bal's presence on the
stage; but short as was the time since she made her mother's
acquaintance, she had learned to know the lady well enough to realize
when she was not wanted. She went with me like a lamb resigned to the
slaughter; and so, I was sure, would she start with us next day. But
just here, I think, is the place to write down what had meanwhile
happened to Mrs. James. If it hadn't been for that happening, perhaps we
should not, after all, have snatched the girl away so easily from
Somerled. And the funny thing was--for it had its funny side, as even he
must have seen--the funny thing was, that all was his own fault. When he
planned that wonderful surprise for Mrs. James, he little thought it
would be the means of stealing his trump card from him. Generous he may
be, and is, I must admit; but it's not likely that he would have been
unselfish enough to put himself in a hole for Mrs. James's happiness,
especially as he could have got just as much credit from Barrie by
waiting a few weeks--say, until the end of the "heather moon."

To have brought in the "surprise" in its proper order, I should have
worked it into my notes between our sight-seeing expedition in the
afternoon, and the theatre in the evening, for it was common property by
that time. We all knew (from Mrs. James, not from himself), what a noble,
magnificent, wonderful, glorious, altogether