wed upon him. A stolid glance over his
spectacles was his first response to Margot's overtures; his next, a
series of grunts and sniffs, and when at last he condescended to words
it was invariably to deride or throw doubt on her statements.

"Tut, nonsense! Who told you that? I would think so, indeed!" followed
by another and more determined retreat behind the _Glasgow Herald_.

In the corner of the room Mrs Macalister sat meekly knitting, never
venturing a look upwards so long as her spouse was in view, but urging
Margot onward by nods and winks and noiseless mouthings, the moment that
she was safe from observation.

It had its comic side, but it was also somewhat pathetic. These two
good commonplace souls had travelled through life together side by side
for over thirty years, and, despite age, infirmity, and "nearves", were
still lovers at heart. Before the wife's eyes the figure of "Mr
Macalister" loomed so large that it blocked out the entire world; to
him, even in this hour of depression, "the wife" was the one supreme
authority.

Fortunately for herself and her friends, Margot was gifted with
sufficient insight to grasp the poetry behind the prose, and it gave her
patience to persevere. Solution came at last, in the shape of the
wheezy old piano in the corner, opened in a moment of aimless wandering
to and fro. Margot was no great performer, but what she could play she
played by heart, and Nature had provided her with a sweet, thrush-like
voice, with that true musical thrill which no teaching can impart. At
the first few bars of a Chopin nocturne Mr Macalister's newspaper
wavered, and fell to his knee. Margot heard the rustle of it, slid
gradually into a simpler melody, and was conscious of a heavy hand
waving steadily to and fro.

"Ha-ha!" murmured Mr Macalister, at the end of the strain. "Hum-hum!
The piano wants tuning, I'm thinking!" It was foreign to his nature to
express any gratification, but that he had deigned to speak at all was a
distinct advance, and equal to a whole volume of compliments from
another man.

"Maybe," he added, after a pause, "if ye were to sing us a ballad it
would be less obsearved!"

So Margot sang, and, finding a book of Scotch selections, could gratify
the old man by selecting his favourite airs, and providing him with an
excuse to hum a gentle accompaniment. Music, it appeared, was Mr
Macalister's passion in life. As a young man he had been quite a
celebrated