and my
father too busy to care----"

"My poor young maid," said the Doctor, "it is wonderful to see you as
you are!"

And secretly the excellent man was planning out a campaign to lead this
lamb into the fold of that Kirk of Scotland, for the purity of whose
doctrine and intact spiritual independence her forefathers had shed
their blood.

"At any rate," said he, rising and bending again over the girl's hand
with old-fashioned politeness, "you will remember that your family pew
is in the front of our laft--I mean in the gallery of the parish kirk
of Eden Valley."

And the Doctor took his leave without ever remembering that he had
failed in the principal part of his mission, having quite forgotten to
find out by what means these two young things came to find themselves
alone in the Great House of Marnhoul.

CHAPTER VIII

KATE OF THE SHORE

It was, I think, ten days after Agnes Anne had left us for the old house
of the Maitlands when she came to me at the school-house. My father had
Fred Esquillant in with him, and the two were busy with Sophocles. I was
sitting dreaming with a book of old plays in my hand when Agnes Anne
came in.

"Duncan," she said, "I am feared to bide this night at Marnhoul. And I
think so is Miss Irma. Now I would rather not tell grandmother--so you
must come!"

"Feared?" said I; "surely you never mean ghosts--and such nonsense,
Agnes Anne--and you the daughter of a school-master!"

"It's the solid ghosts I am feared of," said Agnes Anne; "haste you, and
ask leave of father. He is so busy, he will never notice. He has Freddy
in with him, I hear."

So Agnes Anne and I went in together. We could see the man's head and
the boy's bent close together, and turned from us so that the westering
light could fall upon their books. Fred Esquillant was to be a great
scholar and to do my father infinite credit when he went to the
university. For me I was only a reader of English, a scribbler of verses
in that language, a paltry essayist, with no sense of the mathematics
and no more than an average classic. Therefore in the school I was a
mere hewer of wood and drawer of water to my father.

"Duncan is coming with me to bide the night at Marnhoul," said Agnes
Anne, "and he is going to take 'King George' with him to--scare the
foxes!"

"From the hen-coops?" said my father, looking carelessly up. "Let him
take care not to shoot himself then. He has no nicety of handling!"

I am sure that