ting "The
Lady of the Lake" in his pocket, and pacing up and down between the
rows of cabbages.

"She has just begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for
she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald
and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and
possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you
tolerably comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and
she can come through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally
you don't want to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of
course I can lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I
can throw out umbrellas. Would you like your golf-cape, Pen?
'Won'erful blest in weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad
as it might be," she added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's
toilette should last longer than usual, your wedding need not be
indefinitely postponed, for Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this
window."

Here she disappeared, and we had scarcely time to take in the full
humor of the affair before Robin Anstruther's laughing eyes appeared
over the top of the high brick wall that protects our garden on three
sides.

"Do not shoot," said he. "I am not come to steal the fruit, but to
succor humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow
the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than
waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at
least all your guests,--there are no strangers present,--and Miss
Monroe is already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to
be given, she says, to Mr. Macdonald's sustentation fund."

He was now astride of the wall, and speedily lifted the ladder to our
side, where it leaned comfortably against the stout branches of the
draper's peach vine. Willie ran nimbly up the ladder and bestrode the
wall. I followed, first standing, and then decorously sitting down on
the top of it. Mr. Anstruther pulled up the ladder, and replaced it on
the side of liberty; then he descended, then Willie, and I last of
all, amidst the acclamations of the on-lookers, a select company of
six or eight persons.

When Miss Grieve formally entered the sitting-room bearing the
tea-tray, she was buskit braw in black stuff gown, clean apron, and
fresh cap trimmed with purple ribbons, under which her white locks
were neatly dressed.

She deplored the coolness of the tea, but accounted for i