ow that, though you
have only two farms, you have twelve medals and seven wounds. What
does money matter? it simply makes people vulgar."

"Nonsense, lassie; if a Carnegie runs down money, it's because he has
got none and wishes he had. If you and I had only a few hundreds a
year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of
little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts
of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of
stupid old chaps who have been so busy fighting that they never had
time to read a book."

"You mean like yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch? Where
could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King
Arthur? And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content
away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died,
and the army?

"Pleasure!" and Kate's cheek flushed. "I 've had it since I was a
little tot and could remember anything--the bugles sounding reveille in
the clear air, and the sergeants drilling the new drafts in the
morning, and the regiment coming out with the band before and you at
its head, and hearing 'God save the Queen' at a review, and seeing the
companies passing like one man before the General.

"Don't you think that's better than tea-drinking, and gossiping, and
sewing meetings, and going for walks in some stupid little hole of a
country town? Oh, you wicked, aggravating dad. Now, what more will
money do?"

"Well," said the General, with much gravity, "if you were even a
moderate heiress there is no saying but that we might pick up a
presentable husband for you among the lairds. As it is, I fancy a
country minister is all you could expect.

"Don't . . . my ears will come off some day; one was loosened by a cut
in the Mutiny. No, I 'll never do the like again. But some day you
will marry, all the same," and Kate's father rubbed his ears.

"No, I 'm not going to leave you, for nobody else could ever make a
curry to please; and if I do, it will not be a Scotch minister--horrid,
bigoted wretches, V. C. says. Am I like a minister's wife, to address
mothers' meetings and write out sermons? By the way, is there a kirk
at Drumtochty, or will you read prayers to Janet and Donald and me?"

"When I was a lad there was just one minister in Drumtochty, Mr.
Davidson, a splendid specimen of the old school, who, on great
occasions, wore gaiters and a frill with a di