g with my heart, Captain Campbell," said Jean
tartly, "but my pocket's empty. If you think the boy's neglected you
have a house of your own to take him into; it would be all the better
for a young one in it, and you have the money to spend that Jean Clerk
has not." All this with a very brave show of spirit, but with something
uncommonly moist about the eyes.

The Paymaster, still clutching the boy at the shoulder, turned on his
heel to go, but a side glance at Jean Clerk's face again showed him
something different from avarice or anger.

"You auld besom you!" said he, dunting the floor with his rattan, "I see
through you now; you think you'll get him put off on me. I suppose if I
refused to take him in, you would be the first to make of him."

The woman laughed through her tears. "Oh, but you are the gleg-eyed
one, Captain. You may be sure I would not see my cousin's grandchild
starving, and I'll not deny I put him in your way, because I never knew
a Campbell of Kiels, one of the old bold race, who had not a kind heart
for the poor, and I thought you and your sister could do better than two
old maiden women in a garret could do by him."

"You randy!" said he, "and that's the way you would portion your poor
relations about the countryside. As if I had not plenty of poor friends
of my own! And what in all the world am I to make of the youth?"

"You'll have nothing to do with the making of him, Captain Campbell,"
said Jean Clerk, now safe and certain that the boy's future was assured.
"It'll be Miss Mary will have the making of him, and I ken the lady well
enough--with my humble duty to her--to know she'll make him a gentleman
at the very least."

"Tuts," said the Paymaster, "Sister Mary's like the rest of you; she
would make a milksop of the boy if I was foolish enough to take him home
to her. He'll want smeddum and manly discipline; that's the stuff to
make the soldier. The uneasy bed to sleep on, the day's task to be done
to the uttermost. I'll make him the smartest ensign ever put baldrick
on--that's if I was taking him in hand," he added hastily, realising
from the look of the woman that he was making a complete capitulation.

"And of course you'll take him, Captain Campbell," cried Jean Clerk in
triumph. "I'm sure you would sooner take him and make a soldier of him
than leave him with me--though before God he was welcome--to grow up
harvester or herd."

The Paymaster took a ponderous snuff, snorted, and went