r head and put her hand in his.

"Who's got me most, do you think?"

He answered as he thought.

There was a great spurting wood fire on the hearth in the book-room. As
she looked round Marcella saw that most of the furniture left in the
farm had been brought in. Jean came in, carrying a dish of scones.
Andrew ran straight to her, just as Marcella used to. She explained that
she had come back because the mistress was lonely without her, and she
could not get used to any ways but those of the farm.

The doctor stayed to the meal. There was no bread on the table. Louis
seemed surprised to see the oatcakes and the cheese and the herrings. To
Marcella they were a feast of heaven. They put young Andrew in old
Andrew's chair beneath the dusty pennant. He sat with his fat brown legs
swinging, exceedingly conscious of their manly appearance which he
compared with his father's and the doctor's, delighted to see that the
doctor's old tweed knickerbockers were very much the same shape as his.

"There's bramble jelly for the boy," said Aunt Janet, who scarcely took
her eyes from him for a moment. "Mrs. Mactavish sends me some every
year--one pot. There's been four pots since you went away. And I've
never been minded to open one. Maybe it's mouldered now."

They talked quietly; out on Lashnagar the winds began to howl; in the
passages they shrieked and whined, and whistled and groaned in the
chimney sending out little puffs of smoke. Up above their heads
something scuttled swiftly. The little boy forgot his dignity and drew
nearer to his mother.

"That's the rats, Andrew," said Aunt Janet, watching him. His mother
explained that rats were a pest, to be hunted out like rabbits in
Australia.

He drew away from her then and stood with his back to the fire, his
hands behind.

"Andwew kill wats," he announced. "Wiv a big stick."

The doctor and Louis smoked and talked together of days forty years ago
in Edinburgh, of days seven years ago at St. Crispin's. Marcella and
Aunt Janet spoke softly, sitting by the fire.

"I wouldn't be sitting so near the fire, Marcella. You'll have all the
colour taken out of your skirt. Not that it matters particularly," said
Aunt Janet.

"It's lovely by the fire," murmured Marcella.

Aunt Janet reached over suddenly and spread an old plaid shawl over the
girl's knees. She suddenly felt that Louis and Andrew and the last four
years were unreal and dreamlike. They had happened to her, but now s