ting the carpets?"

In half-a-dozen springs, as it seemed, I was within the gate. Then the
clear, shrill wail with which a new soul prisoned in an unfamiliar body
trumpets its discontent with the vanities of this world stopped me dead.
Scarce knowing what I did, I took off my boots. I trod softly.

There was a hush now in the house--a sudden stoppage of that shrill
bugle-note. I came upon my grandmother, as it seemed, moulding a little
ruddy bundle, with as much apparent ease and absence of fuss as if it
had been a pat of butter in the dairy at home.

And when she put my firstborn son into my arms, I had no high thoughts.
I trembled, indeed, but it was with fear lest I should drop him.

Presently his nurse took him again, grumbling at the innate and
incurable handlessness of men. Could I see Irma? Certainly not. What
would I be doing, disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was asleep.
Oh, I had promised to go, had I? Well, she had nothing to do with that.
But Irma would be expecting me! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not trouble
yourself. She will be resting in a peace like the peace of the Lord, as
you might know, if ever a man could know anything about such things.

Just for a minute? Well, then--a minute, and no more. Mind, she, Mary
Lyon, would be at the door. I was not to speak even.

As I went in, Irma lifted her arms a little way and then let them fall.
There was a kind of shiny dew on her face, little but chill to the touch
of my lips. And, ah, how wistful her smile!

"Your ... little ... girl," she whispered, "has deserved ... well ... of
her country. I hope he will be brave ... like his father. I prayed all
might be well ... for your sake, my dear. His name is to be Duncan....
Yes, Duncan Louis Maitland!"

I had been kneeling at the bedside, kneeling and, well--perhaps sobbing.
But at that moment I felt a hand on my collar. The next I was on my
feet, and so, with only one glimpse of Irma's smile at my fate, I found
myself outside the room.

"What was it I telled ye?--Not to excite her! Was it no?"

And Mary Lyon showed me the way down to the kitchen, which I had
forgotten, where, on condition of not making a noise, I was to be
permitted for the present to abide.

"But mind you," she added, threateningly, "not a foot-sole are ye to set
on thae stairs withoot my permission. Or, my certes, lad, but ye will
hear aboot it!"

Decidedly I was a man under authority. The extraordinary thing was that
I w