d a sair sickenin' day, an amount of work
too wearifu' for one person by her lane. She hoped that the bonfire
wasna built o' Mrs. Sinkler's coals nor Mr. Macbrose's kindlings, nor
soaked with Mr. Cameron's paraffine; and she finished with the
customary but irrelative and exasperating allusion to the exceedingly
nice family with whom she had lived in Glasgy.

And still we toiled upward, keeping our doubts to ourselves. Jean was
limping bravely, supported by Robin Anstruther's arm. Mr. Macdonald
was ardently helping Francesca, who can climb like a chamois, but
would doubtless rather be assisted. Her gypsy face shone radiant out
of her black cloth hood, and Ronald's was no less luminous. I have
never seen two beings more love-daft. They comport themselves as if
they had read the manuscript of the tender passion, and were moving in
exalted superiority through a less favored world,--a world waiting
impatiently for the first number of the story to come out.

Still we climbed, and as we approached the Grey Lady (a curious rock
very near the summit) somebody proposed three cheers for the Queen.

How the children hurrahed,--for the infant heart is easily
inflamed,--and how their shrill Jubilee slogan pierced the mystery of
the night, and went rolling on from glen to glen to the Firth of Forth
itself! Then there was a shout from the rocketmen far out on the open
moor,--"Cawda's clear! Cawda's clear!" Back against a silver sky stood
the signal pile, and signal rockets flashed upward, to be answered
from all the surrounding hills.

Now to light our own fire. One of the village committee solemnly took
off his hat and poured on oil. The great moment had come. Brenda
Macrae approached the sacred pile, and, tremulous from the effect of
much contradictory advice, applied the torch. Silence, thou Grieve and
others, false prophets of disaster! Who now could say that Pettybaw
bonfire had been badly built, or that its fifteen tons of coal and
twenty cords of wood had been unphilosophically heaped together!

The flames rushed toward the sky with ruddy blaze, shining with weird
effect against the black fir-trees and the blacker night. Three cheers
more! God save the Queen! May she reign over us, happy and glorious!
And we cheered lustily, too, you may be sure! It was more for the
woman than the monarch; it was for the blameless life, not for the
splendid monarchy; but there was everything hearty, and nothing alien
in our tone, when we sa