couple of arm-chairs before it.

"So you've decided to immure yourself in the backwoods for another
year, I hear," he said, when his guest was comfortably seated and
supplied with a cigar. "Come, Archie, this will never do. Two years
was the limit you set when you took the school, and there's no more the
matter with you than there is with me. You're actually getting fat,
man!"

"Why, I do believe I am," said the other apologetically. "I shall
probably grow corpulent and lazy, and settle down in Glenoro to a
peaceful old age."

"Not a bit of you! You look like a new man, and you ought to get back
to your law books."

Monteith drew his hand over his grey hair with a meaning smile. "It
seems rather foolish at my age, but I believe I shall; the Oro air has
really made a new man of me, as you say. I believe I should have gone
long ago if I hadn't been interested in a certain young person there."

"A young person! Thunder and lightning, Archie, don't tell me you've
gone and fallen in love!"

Monteith laughed. "Upon my word I believe I have," he asserted, "but
don't look so aghast, the object of my devotion is six feet high, and
is cultivating a moustache."

"Oh, that young MacDonald chum of yours. You gave me quite a shock."
The guest noticed that his friend's face changed at the mention of
Scotty; there was a moment's rather awkward silence.

"So the ladies are away," said Monteith at last. "I am unfortunate."

Captain Herbert burst into a hearty laugh. "Why, bless my soul, you've
had the escape of your life! Eleanor has it in for you, for shifting
your responsibility and sending little Bluebell home with your young
MacDonald; an uncommonly handsome young beggar he is too, with the airs
of a Highland chieftain, quite the kind calculated to be dangerous,
Eleanor thinks. I'm afraid she wasn't as cordial to the boy as she
might have been, and probably lost me a couple of good MacDonald votes."

Monteith looked enlightened. "Why, I must apologise," he said, "but I
did not dream I was transgressing. Miss Herbert surely knows that they
have been like brother and sister since their baby days?"

"Oh, that's just the trouble. Eleanor's scared they're not going to
remain like brother and sister. She and your minister's wife down
there have got it into their busy heads that the little monkey's
inclined to think too much about this old chum of hers. Bluebell's the
right sort, I assure you, Archie, never f