cess.
The hitherto unknown cousins were delightful people, and she and her
brother were prolonging their stay till the middle of January. Then,
she said, she hoped to come back to Priorsford for a little, while Biddy
went on to London.

How easy it all sounded, Jean thought. Historic houses full of all
things lovely, leisured, delightful people, the money, and the freedom
to go where one listed: no pinching, no striving, no sordid cares.

David's vacation was slipping past; and Jean was deep in preparations
for his departure. She longed vehemently for some money to spend. There
were so many things that David really needed and was doing without, so
many of the things he had were so woefully shabby. Jean understood
better now what a young man wanted; she had studied Lord Bidborough's
clothes. Not that the young man was anything of a dandy, but he had
always looked right for every occasion. And Jean thought that probably
all the young men at Oxford looked like that--poor David! David himself
never grumbled. He meant to make money by his pen in spare moments, and
his mind was too full of plans to worry much about his shabby clothes.
He sometimes worried about his sister, and thought it hard that she
should have the cares of a household on her shoulders at an age when
other girls were having the time of their lives, but he solaced himself
with the thought that some day he would make it up to Jean, that some
day she should have everything that now she was missing, full measure
pressed down and running over. It never occurred to the boy that Jean's
youth would pass, and whatever he might be able to give her later, he
could never give her that back.

Pamela returned to Hillview in the middle of the month, just before
David left.

Bella Bathgate owned that she was glad to have her back. That
indomitable spinster had actually missed her lodger. She was surprised
at her own pleasure in seeing the boxes carried upstairs again, in
hearing the soft voice talking to Mawson, in sniffing the faint sweet
scent that seemed to hang about the house when Miss Reston was in it,
conquering the grimmer odour of naphtha and boiled cabbage which
generally held sway.

Bella had missed Mawson too. It was fine to have her back again in her
cosy kitchen, enjoying her supper and full of tales of the glories of
Champertoun. Bella's face grew even longer than it was naturally as she
heard of the magnificence of that ancient house, of the chapel, o