y occupy himself in turning the old curate's _Three
Patriarchs_ into Latin. As to his holidays, he can spend them with his
sister or stay on in Edinburgh with the Doctor. But London is not a
place for a young gentleman of such exalted notions of his own
importance--'You bury me at a farmhouse with a family of boors!'--was
what he said. Now, that smells Mr. Lalor a mile off. But the lad is not
much to blame, and I hope you will not let it go any farther."

"Certainly not," said I, "the boy was only quoting!"

I returned from this interview considerably relieved, but for some days
Sir Louis was visibly cast down.

However, I said nothing to Irma, only advising her to devote herself a
little more to her brother, at times when the exigencies of Duncan the
Second would leave her time and opportunity.

"Why!" she said, with a quick gasp of astonishment, "I never forget
Louis--but of course baby needs me sometimes. I can't help that!"

If I had dared, I should have reminded her that baby appeared to need
every woman about the house of Heathknowes--to whom may be added my
mother from the school-house, Mrs. Thomas Gallaberry (late Anderson),
and a great and miscellaneous cloud of witnesses, to all of whom the
commonest details of toilet--baby's bath, his swathing and unbandaging,
the crinkling of his face and the clenching of his fists, the curious
curdled marbling upon his fat arms, even the inbending of his toes, were
objects of a cult to which that of the Lama of Thibet was a common and
open secret.

Even fathers were excluded as profane on such occasions, and the gasps
of feminine delight at each new evidence of genius were the only sounds
that might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I admit, I was
often mean enough to do. Yet the manifestations of the object of
worship, as overheard by me, appeared sufficiently human and ordinary to
be passed over in silence.

I admit, however, that such was not the opinion of any of the regular
worshippers at the shrine, and that the person of the opposite sex who
was permitted to warm the hero's bath-towel at the fire, became an
object of interest and envy to the whole female community. As for my
grandmother, I need only say that while Duncan the Second abode within
the four walls of Heathknowes, not an ounce of decent edible butter
passed out of her dairy. Yet not a man of us complained. We knew better.

There still remained, however, a ceremony to be faced which I c