o bed," said Jean, "and stop talking about that
horrible little man. He oughtn't to be mentioned in the same breath as
Quentin Durward."

Mhor went out of the room still arguing.

The next day David came home.

The whole family, including Peter, were waiting on the platform to
welcome him, but Mhor was too interested in the engine and Jock too
afraid of showing sentiment to pay much attention to him, and it was
left to Jean and Peter to express joy at his return.

At first it seemed to Jean that it was a different David who had come
back. There was an indefinable change even in his appearance. True, he
wore the same Priorsford clothes that he had gone away in, but he
carried himself better, with more assurance. His round, boyish face had
taken on a slightly graver and more responsible look, and his accent
certainly had an Oxford touch. Enough, anyhow, to send Jock and Mhor
out of the room to giggle convulsively in the lobby. To Jean's relief
David noticed nothing; he was too busy telling Jean his news to trouble
about the eccentric behaviour of the two boys.

David would hardly have been human if he had not boasted a little that
first night. He had often pictured to himself just how it would be. Jean
would sit by the fire and listen, and he would sit on the old
comfortable sofa and recount all the doings of his first term, tell of
his friends, his tutors, his rooms, the games, the fun--all the details
of the wonderful new life. And it had happened just as he had pictured
it--lucky David! The room had looked as he had known it would look, with
a fire that sparkled as only Jean's fire ever sparkled, and Jean's
eyes--Jean's "doggy" eyes, as Mhor called them--were lit with interest;
and Jock and Mhor and Peter crept in after a little and lay on the rug
and gazed up at him, a quiet and most satisfactory audience.

Jean felt a little in awe of this younger brother of hers, who had
suddenly grown a man and spoke with an air of authority. She had an ache
at her heart for the Davie who had been a little boy and content to
lean; she seemed hardly to know this new David. But it was only for a
little. When Jock and Mhor had gone to bed, the brother and sister sat
over the fire talking, and David forgot all his new importance and
ceased to "buck," and told Jean all his little devices to save money,
and how he had managed just to scrape along.

"If only everyone else were poor as well," said Jean, "then it wouldn't
matter."