h Baubie's shortcomings, it was
because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to
rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any
pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a
sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in the
refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair any
comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught Baubie.

Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in the refuge,
when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, called to inquire how her
_protegee_ was getting on.

The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. "She's just no
trouble--a quiet-like child. She knows just nothing, but I've set her
beside the lassie Grant, and I don't doubt but she'll do well yet; but
she is some dull," she added.

"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try and learn
everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she sews, and she is no
older than you."

"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. She was
still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the garments gave
her that odd look of their real owner which clothes so often have the
power of conveying. Baubie's slim figure had caught the flat-backed,
square-shoulder form of her little neighbor, and her face, between the
smooth-laid bands of her hair, seemed to have assumed the same
gravely-respectable air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the
time, could they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed
lips and studied pose.

That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance from the
wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and shrunken in size, as
was the nature of its material for one reason, and for another because
it had parted, in common with its owner when subjected to the same
process, with a great deal of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar
garb again with joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction.

That same night, when the girls were going to bed--whether the
inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock,
and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the
prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her
of late--Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of
consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade.

The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of th