he would cry. "Neat! neat!" while his twinkling eyes
surveyed the boy with increasing respect. "Do you often improvise?" he
asked, when the ballad came to an end, and when Ron replied truthfully
enough in the negative, "Well, I have heard many fellows do it worse!"
was his flattering comment.

Margot had expected more, and felt that more was deserved, for the
ballad had been quite a brilliant effort to be rattled off on the spur
of the moment, but she could only hope that, in conclave with his
brother, the Chieftain might be more enthusiastic, and manage to impress
upon that absent-minded genius that the boy was worthy of his notice and
study.

In due time--a very short time, as it appeared--the cottage was reached
owned by the "guid-wife," who was ready to give--not sell--draughts of
buttermilk to the passers-by. Margot was a little chary of the first
taste, but the keen moorland air had done its work, and she too found it
as nectar to the palate. The guid-wife "had no English," but the two
women conversed eloquently with the language of the eyes, concerning the
sleeping baby in its cradle, and the toddling urchins around the door.
Here in the solitude this brave woman of the people reared her family,
made their garments, tended them when they were sick, cooked for them,
baked for them, washed for them, mended for them, and kept the three-
roomed cot as exquisitely clean as hands could make it. The girl who
dusted the drawing-room and arranged a few vases of flowers as her duty
in life, gazed at her with awe, and felt ashamed of her own idle
existence!

The buttermilk quaffed, Mr Elgood led the way to a thick patch of
heather some few hundred yards nearer home, came to a standstill, and,
spreading his handkerchief under his head, lay down with great
deliberation and crossed his arms in beatific content.

"Now, if you want to discover what comfort means, find a soft patch for
yourselves, and take a nap before we start for home. No upholsterer on
earth ever manufactured a mattress to equal a bed of heather. If you
don't want to sleep, kindly keep your distance, and enjoy yourselves
with discretion, for if I'm awakened in the middle of my siesta, nothing
short of murder will appease me!"

He shut his eyes even as he spoke, and composed himself with a sigh of
content. Margot, nothing loath, took off her cap, and, spreading her
cape over the bushes, nestled contentedly into its folds. Ron scorned
the idea of