w light hairs that stood in lonely abandonment
on his upper lip, the rest of his lean visage always well shorn, had no
small part in the grand effect of McClingan.

'A love story!' said Miss Hull. 'I do wish I had your confidence. I like
a real, true love story.

'A simple stawry it is,' said McClingan, 'and Jam proud of my part in
it. I shall be glad to tell the stawry if you are to hear it.'

We assured him of our interest.

'Well,' said he, 'there was one Tom Douglass at Edinburgh who was my
friend and classmate. We were together a good bit of the time, and
when we had come to the end of our course we both went to engage in
journalism at Glasgow. We had a mighty conceit of ourselves--you know
how it is, Brower, with a green lad--but we were a mind to be modest,
with all our learning, so we made an agreement: I would blaw his horn
and he would blaw mine. We were not to lack appreciation. He was on one
paper and I on another, and every time he wrote an article I went up and
down the office praising him for a man o' mighty skill, and he did the
same for me. If anyone spoke of him in my hearing I said every word of
flattery at my command. "What Tom Douglass?" I would say, "the man o'
the Herald that's written those wonderful articles from the law court?
A genius, sir! an absolute genius!" Well, we were rapidly gaining
reputation. One of those days I found myself in love with as comely a
lass as ever a man courted. Her mother had a proper curiosity as to my
character. I referred them to Tom Douglass of the Herald--he was the
only man there who had known me well. The girl and her mother both went
to him.

"Your friend was just here," said the young lady, when I called again.
"He is a very handsome man."

'"And a noble man!" I said.

'"And didn't I hear you say that he was a very skilful man, too?"

'"A genius!" I answered, "an absolute genius!"

McClingan stopped and laughed heartily as he took a sip of water.

'What happened then?' said Miss I-lull.

'She took him on my recommendation,' he answered. 'She said that, while
he had the handsomer face, I had the more eloquent tongue. And they both
won for him. And, upon me honour as a gentleman, it was the luckiest
thing that ever happened to me, for she became a brawler and a scold. My
mother says there is "no the like o' her in Scotland".

I shall never forget how fondly Margaret Hull patted the brown cheek of
Trumbull with her delicate white band, as we rose.