t was in the hands of God, and prognostication
could only be vain and unprofitable. His mother and sister, indeed,
questioned him covertly when his father and brother were out of hearing;
but that was chiefly about Edinburgh, and the shops, and the splendours
of the Dalry Road. The Bursary was never mentioned.

On the day on which the result was to be announced their father took
Robin and David away to a distant hillside to assist at the
sheep-dipping. The news would come by letter, which might or might not
get as far as Strathmyrtle Post Office, seven miles away, that very
afternoon. In the morning it would be delivered by the postman.

But there are limits to human endurance, none the less definite because
that endurance appears illimitable. When father and sons tramped back to
the farm that evening, just in time for supper, it was discovered that
Margaret was absent. John Fordyce, grim old martinet that he was, looked
round the table inquiringly; but a glance at his wife's face caused him
to go on with his meal.

At nine o'clock precisely the table was cleared. The herdman and two
farm lasses came into the kitchen from their final tasks in the yard,
and the great Bible was put down on the table for evening "worship."

John Fordyce, having looked up the "portion" which he proposed to read,
then turned to the Metrical Psalms. These were sung night by night in
unswerving rotation throughout the year, a custom which, while it
offered the pleasing prospect of variety, occasionally left something to
be desired on the score of appropriateness.

All being seated, the old man, after a final fleeting glance at his
daughter's empty chair, gave out the Psalm.

"Let us worship God," he said, "by singing to His praise in the Hundred
and Twenty-first Psalm. Psalm a Hundred and Twenty-one--

'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come----'"

The door opened, and Margaret entered. She was dusty and tired, for she
had walked fourteen miles since milking-time; but in her hand she held a
letter.

She glanced timidly at the clock, and was for slipping quietly into her
seat; but her father said--

"You had best give it to him now. A man cannot worship God while his
mind is distracted with other things."

Robin took the letter, and after a glance in the direction of his father
and the waiting Bible, opened and read it amidst a tense silence.
Finally he looked up.

"Well?" said the old man.

"They have