ified progress as he rattled down the face
of the hill after the whirling hat amused Grace Hutchison, and she
laughed a little, which helped things wonderfully.

"But you have lost your own cap," she said, looking at his cropped blond
poll without disapproval.

"It does not matter," said Duncan, rubbing it all over with his hand as
though the action would render it waterproof.

Now, Grace Hutchison was accustomed to domineer over her father in
household matters, such as the care of his person; so it occurred to her
that she ought to order this young man to go and look after his cap. But
she did not. On the contrary, she took a handkerchief out of her pocket,
disentangling it mysteriously from the recesses of flapping skirts.

"Put that over your head till you get your own," she said.

Sober is not always that which sober looks, and it may be that Grace
Hutchison had no objections to a little sedate merriment with this young
man. It was serious enough down at the manse, in all conscience; and
every young man in the parish stood ten yards off when he spoke to Miss
Hutchison. She had not been at a party since she left the Ministers'
Daughters' College two years ago, and then all the young men were
carefully selected and edited by the lady principal. And Grace Hutchison
was nineteen. Think of that, maids of the many invitations!

The young master's attempts to tie the handkerchief were ludicrous in
the extreme. One corner kept falling over and flicking into his eye, so
that he seemed to be persistently winking at her with that eyelid, a
proceeding which would certainly not have been allowed at the parties of
the Ministers' Daughters' College with the consent of the
authorities--at least not in Grace's time.

"Oh, how stupid you are!" said Grace, putting a pin into her mouth to be
ready; "let me do it."

She spoke just as if she had been getting her father ready for church.

She settled the handkerchief about Duncan Rowallan's head with one or
two little tugs to the side. Then she took the pin out of her mouth and
pinned it beneath his chin, in a way mightily practical, which the youth
admired.

"Now, then," she said, stepping back to put on her own hat, fastening it
with a dangerous-looking weapon of war shaped like a stiletto, thrust
most recklessly in.

The two young people stood in the lee of the plantation on the corner of
the glebe, which had been planted by Dr. Hutchison's predecessor, an old
bachelor who