"That's right, my boy. Your place is with your father just now. And you're looking as fine and fit as if you'd been away camping."

"I'm ready for anything. You and J. P. Thornton can start for the Holy Land to-morrow."

"I prophesied once, about a score or so years ago; that I'd go when you could manage my practice, and I'll be hanged if I don't think it's coming true. J. P.'s talking about it, anyway. Does your arm ever bother you now?"

Roderick doubled up his right fist, stretched out his arm, and slowly drew it up, showing his splendid muscle. "Sometimes, but not anything to bother about, only a twinge once in a while when it's damp. I can still paddle my good canoe, and if you'd like a boxing bout—" he turned and squared up to his friend, receiving a lightning-like blow that nearly knocked him into the road. And the two went off into an uproarious sparring match like a couple of youngsters.

Lawyer Ed had never yet married though he still made love to every woman, girl and baby in Algonquin. But Roderick McRae had grown to be like a son to him, filling every desire of his big warm heart, and now the proud day had come when his boy was to be his partner. He and Angus had talked for hours of the wonderful things that were to be accomplished in the town and church and on the Jericho Road when the Lad came home, and had laid great plans at which the Lad himself only guessed. They had feared for a time that all were to be ruined when, after his graduation, he had been kept in the city in the employ of a firm, and had received from them an offer of a position in the West. But he had refused, to their joy, and was to settle in Algonquin and relieve Lawyer Ed of his altogether too burdensome practice.

As they spun along, for the five-o'clock train was still to be caught, the elder man poured out all the news of the town; J. P.'s last great speech, Algonquin's lacrosse victories, the latest battle in the session,—for Jock McPherson was still a valiant and stubborn objector,—the last tea-meeting at McClintock's Corners, where the Highland Quartette, of whom Lawyer Ed was leader, had sung, the errand over to Indian Head, where he had just been, etc., etc. It was not half told when they came to the point in the road opposite Roderick's home, and the Lad leaped down, promising to run up to the office that night when he went into town for his trunk.

He lost no time on the rest of the journey. It was a dash through the dim woods where the white Indian Pipes raised their tiny, waxen tapers, and the squirrels skirled indignantly at him from the tree-tops; a leap across the stream where the water-lilies made a fairy bridge of green and gold, a scramble through the underbrush, and he was at the edge of the little pasture-field, and saw the old home buried in orchard trees, and Aunt Kirsty's garden a blaze of sun-flowers and asters. And there at the gate, gazing eagerly down the lane in quite the wrong direction, stood his father!

The years had told heavily on the Good Samaritan, and Roderick's loving eye could detect changes even in the last year of his absence. Old Angus's tall figure was stooped and thin, and he carried a staff, but he still held up his head as though facing the skies, and his eyes were as young and as kindly as ever. The Lad gave a boyish shout and came bounding towards him. The old man dropped his stick and held out both his hands. He said not a word, but his eyes spoke very eloquently all his pride and joy and love. He put his two hands on his son's head and uttered a low prayer of thanksgiving.

Aunt Kirsty came bustling out as fast as her accumulating flesh would permit. Poor Aunt Kirsty had grown to a great bulk these later days and could not hurry, but indeed had she used up all the energy on moving forward that she mistakenly put into swaying violently from side to side, she would have made tremendous speed. Roderick ran to meet her, and she took him into her ample bosom and kissed him and patted him on the back and poured out a dozen Gaelic synonyms for darling, and then shoved him away, and burying her face in her apron, began to cry because he was such a man and not her baby any more!

The father's heart was too full for words; but after supper when they sat out on the porch in the soft misty twilight, he found many things to ask, and many questions to answer. Roderick sat on the step facing the lake, filled with a great content. The sunset gleam of the water through the darkening trees, the soft plaintive call of the phoebes from the woods, the sleepy drone of Bossy's bell from the pasture, and the scents of the garden made up the atmosphere of home.

"Well, well, and you have come to stay," his father said for the tenth time, rubbing his hands along his knee in ecstasy, "to stay."

"It'll be great to know that I don't have to run away at the end of the summer, won't it?"

"It'll jist be the answer to all my prayers, Lad. I feel I am no use in the world at all, now that you have made me give up all work." He gave his son a glance of loving reproach. For while Roderick had managed to get his education, he had managed too, to do wonderful things with the little farm, so that his father had long ago given up the work he had resumed after his year's illness. And Aunt Kirsty had a servant-girl in the kitchen now, and devoted all her time to her garden and her Bible.

"You've jist made your father a useless old body. But I jist can't be minding, for I see how you can be taking up all my work. There's the Jericho Road waiting for you, Lad."

The young man smiled indulgently. "And what do you think I can do there, Father? Unless Mike Cassidy goes to law as usual."

"Ah, but is jist you that can. Edward will be finding great opportunities for helping folk and he has not the time now. There's that poor bit English body, Perkins, and his family, and there's Mike as you say, though Father Tracy would be straightening him up something fine. But you must jist see that he doesn't go to law any more. And then there's poor Peter Fiddle."

The younger man laughed. "Peter is the kind of poor we have with us always, Dad. Is he behaving any better?"

"Och, indeed I sometime think I see a decided improvement," exclaimed Old Angus, with the optimism that had refused to give Peter Fiddle up through years of drunkenness and failure. "We must jist keep hold of him, and the good Lord will save Peter yet, never fear."

Roderick was silent. Personally he had no faith in Peter McDuff the elder. He had gone on through the years fiddling and singing and telling stories, his drunken sprees showing a constantly diminishing interval between. Every one in Algonquin, except Angus McRae, had given him up long ago, but his old friend still held on to him with a faith which was really the only thing that kept old Peter from complete ruin. But Roderick had the impatience of youth with failure, and though he had inherited his father's warm heart, he was not at all happy at the thought of becoming guardian of all the poor unfortunates of the town who in one way or the other had fallen among thieves.

"Eh yes, yes, there is a great ministry for you here, Lad. I have sometimes been sorry that you did not feel called to the preaching, but I was jist thinking the last time Edward and I talked the work over, that I was glad now you hadn't. For you will be able to help the poor folk that need you jist as well here, though I would be far from putting anything above the preaching of the Gospel. But there will be many ways of preaching the Gospel, Lad, and the lawyer has a great chance. It will be by jist being neighbour to the folk in want. Folk go more often to the lawyer or the doctor, Archie Blair says, when they are in trouble, than they do to their minister, and I am afraid it's true. And a great many of the folk that will come to you to get you to do their business, Lad, will be folk in trouble, many who have fallen among thieves on the Jericho Road, and you will be pouring in the oil and the wine that the dear Lord has given you, and you will be doing it all in His name." He sighed happily. "Oh, yes, indeed and indeed, it will be a great ministry, Roderick, my son."

Roderick was silent. His heart was touched. He resolved he would do the best he could for any friend of his father who was in trouble. But his eye was set on far prospects of great achievement, where Algonquin and the Jericho Road had no place.

Their talk was interrupted by Aunt Kirsty, who came to the door to demand of him what he had done with his clothes. Had he come home, the rascal, with nothing but what was on his back after the six pairs of new socks she had sent him only last spring?

Roderick sprang up. "My trunk! It will be on the wharf. I yelled at Peter to put it off there, just as we were driving away, and said I'd paddle over and get it. I forgot all about it, Aunt Kirsty." The father and son looked at each other and smiled. It was easy to forget when they were together.

"I'll go after it right now. It's mostly old books and soiled clothes, Auntie, but there's one nice thing in it. You ought to see the peach of a shawl I got you." He ran in for his cap, and she followed him to the door, scolding him for his foolish extravagance, but not deceiving any one into thinking that she was not highly pleased.

Angus stood long at the water's edge watching the Lad's canoe slip away out on the mirror of the lake. The shore was growing dark, but the water still reflected the rose of the sunset. The soft dip of his paddle disturbed its stillness and a long golden track marked the road he was taking out into the light. Away ahead of him, beyond the network of islands, shone the glory of the departing day. The Lad was paddling straight for the Gleam. The father's mind went back to that evening of stormy radiance, when the little fellow had paddled away to find the rainbow gold.

His eyes followed the straight, alert young figure yearningly. He was praying that in the voyage of life before him, his boy might never be led away by false lights. He recalled the words of the poem Archie Blair had recited the evening before at a young folks' meeting in the town.

"Not of the sunlight Not of the moonlight Not of the starlight, Oh young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companions Launch your vessel And crowd your canvas And e'er it vanish Over the margin After it; follow it; Follow the gleam!"

It held the burden of his prayer for the Lad; that, ever unswerving, he might follow the true Gleam until he found it, shining on the forehead of the blameless King.



CHAPTER IV

SIDE LIGHTS

Roderick was not thinking of that Gleam upon which his father's mind was set, as he glided silently out upon the golden mirror of Lake Algonquin. The still wonder of the glowing lake and sky and the mystery of the darkening shore and islands carried his thoughts somehow to a new wonder and dream; the light that had shone in the girl's brave eyes, the colour that had flooded her face at his awkward words. They were beautiful eyes but sad, and there were tints in her hair like the gold on the water. Roderick had known scarcely any young women. His life had been too busy for that—when he was away, books had claimed all his attention, when he was home, the farm. But in the background of his consciousness, shadowy and unformed, but none the less present, dwelt a vague picture of his ideal woman; the woman that was to be his one day. She was really the picture of his mother, as painted by his father's hand, and as memory furnished a light here or a detail there. Roderick had not had time to think of his ideal; his heart was a boy's heart still—untried and unspoiled, but this evening her shadowy form seemed to have become more definite, and it wore golden brown hair and had sad blue-grey eyes.

He swept silently around the end of Wanda Island, and his dreams were suddenly interrupted by a startling sight; for directly in front of him, just between the little bay and the lake beyond, bobbed an upturned canoe and two heads!

To the youthful native of Algonquin an upset into the lake was not a serious matter; and to the young lady and gentleman swimming about their capsized craft, the affair, up to a few moments previous, had been rather a good joke. How it had happened that two such expert canoeists as Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton could fall out of anything that sailed the water, was a question those who knew them could not have solved. They had been over to Mondamin Island to gather golden-rod and asters for a party the young lady was to give the next evening. They had been paddling merrily homeward, the space between them piled with their purple and golden treasure, and as they paddled they talked, or rather the young lady did, for where Miss Leslie Graham was, no one else had much chance to say anything.

"There's the Inverness at the dock," she said, when they came within view of the town. "Aunt Elinor's boarder must have come on it, the girl that's going to teach in Miss Hasting's room."

"I thought your aunt said you weren't to call her a boarder."

The girl put her paddle across the canoe and leaned back with a burst of laughter. She was handsome at any time, but particularly so when she laughed, showing a row of perfect teeth and a merry gleam in her black eyes.

"Poor old Auntie! Isn't she a joke? She's scared the family escutcheon of the Armstrongs will be sullied forever with the blot of a boarder on it. Auntie Bell is nearly as bad too. My! I hope they won't expect us to trot her around in our set."

"Why?" asked young Mr. Hamilton. He was always interested in new girls.

"Too many girls in it already. You know that, Fred Hamilton."

"Well, I say, I believe you're right, Les," he ventured, but with some hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts spoken out incisively as was her way.

"There does seem to be an awful swarm of them," he admitted reluctantly, "especially since the Harrisons and the Wests came to town. I danced twenty-five times without drawing breath at Polly's last spree, and never twice with the same girl. Where did she pick 'em all up, anyway?"

That was the last remark they could remember having made. And the girl was wont to explain that the thing which happened next was a just judgment upon the young man for uttering such sentiments, and a fearful warning for his future. But the most elaborate explanations could never quite solve the mystery, for they never knew how it chanced that the next moment the canoe was over and they were in the water. To a girl of Algonquin, a canoe upset was inexcusable; to a boy, a disgrace never to be lived down. So when Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton, who had been born and brought up on the shores of the lake and had learned to swim and walk simultaneously, found themselves in the water, the first expression in their eyes, after an instant's startled surprise, was one of indignation.

"What on earth did you do?" gasped the girl, and "What on earth did you do?" sputtered the boy.

And then, being the girl she was, Leslie Graham burst out laughing, "'What on the water,' would be more appropriate. Well, Fred Hamilton, I never thought you'd upset!"

"I didn't!" he cried indignantly. "You jumped, I saw you."

"Jumped! I never did! And even if I did, I don't see why you should have turned a somersault. I could dance the Highland Fling in a canoe and not upset. Oh dear! all my flowers are gone!" They put their hands on the upturned craft and floated easily.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked. "We're a long way from shore, and the walking's damp."

He glanced about. They were a good distance from land, but the only danger he anticipated was the danger of a rescue. He would be disgraced forever if some fellow paddled out from home and picked them up. But a little island lay between them and the town, screening them from immediate exposure.

"Do? Why, just hop in again. Here, help me heave her over!"

Many a time in younger days, just for fun, they had pitched themselves out of their canoe, righted it again, "scooped" and "rocked" the water out, and scrambled back over bow and stern. But that was always when they wore bathing suits and there were no paddles and cushions floating about to be collected. But they were ready for even this difficult feat. They tumbled the canoe over to its proper position, and the young man, by balancing himself upon one end and swimming rapidly, sent the stern up into the air and "scooped" most of the water out. Then they rocked it violently from side to side, to empty the remainder, while the girl sang gaily "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," her dancing eyes no less bright than the water drops glistening on her black curly hair.

But the emptying process was longer than they had anticipated, and the evening air was growing cool. By the time the canoe was ready to enter, the girl had stopped singing.

"Hustle up, Freddie!" she called, giving a little shiver, as he shot away through the water for a paddle. "This water's getting wetter every minute." When he returned, he placed himself at the stern and the girl at the bow.

"Now," he cried, "when I say go, you climb like a cat, Les. Don't hurry, just crawl in easy. Ready? Go!"

She placed her hands on the gunwale and drew herself up, while her companion, with an eye on her progress, slowly crawled over the stern.

But the heavy drag of her soaked cloth skirt was too much for the girl's strength. She paused, failed at the critical moment, slipped to one side, and they were once more in the water, the canoe bottom up.

"Oh, hang!" exclaimed the young man. Then apologetically, "Never mind, heave her over, and we'll do it again."

But the girl's teeth had begun to chatter, and the work of emptying the canoe the second time was not such a joke. And the second attempt to get in and the third also proved a failure.

"What's the matter, anyhow?" grumbled the boy impatiently. "You've done that three times, Leslie!"

He was amazed and dismayed to see her lip quiver. "I can't do it, Fred. I'm all tired out. I—I believe I'm going to yell for help."

"Oh, Great Scott, Leslie!" groaned the young man. Then encouragingly, "You're all right. Cheer up! I'll get you into this thing in no time."

He set to work again briskly, but though the girl helped, it was without enthusiasm. She was going through an entirely new experience. In all her happy life, untouched by sorrow or privation of any kind, she had never felt the need of help. Fred and she had been chums since they were babies, and were going to be married some day, perhaps. Fred was a good, jolly fellow, he was well off, well-dressed, and quite the leader of all the young men of the town. But now, for the first time, her dauntless gay spirit was forsaking her, and a vision of how inadequate Fred might be in time of stress was coming dimly to her awakening woman's heart. She would almost rather have drowned than play the coward. But she wanted Fred to be afraid for her. She was more of a woman than she knew.

And then, just as a wave of fear was coming over her, Roderick McRae, in his canoe, came out around the point and paddled straight towards them.

She gave a cry of joyful relief. "A canoe! Oh, look, Fred! Somebody's coming this way from McRae's cove!"

The young man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time in the water. But he would not admit that.

"Pshaw!" he grumbled. "I wish they'd waited a minute longer."

"Well, I don't!" cried his companion tremulously.

The boy looked across the canoe at her. Never, in the twenty years he had known Leslie Graham intimately, had he before seen her daunted.

"What's up?" he demanded. "You're not losing your nerve, Leslie?"

"No, I'm not!" she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected quaver in her voice. "But—"

"You're not chilled, are you?"

"No. Not much."

"Nor cramped?"

"No."

"Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all right. What's the matter, anyhow?"

But she did not answer, for she hardly knew herself. She had no real fear of being drowned, that seemed impossible. But strange new feelings had begun to stir in the heart, that so far had been only the care-free heart of a girl, almost the heart of a daring boy. She did not realise that what she really wanted was that Fred should be solicitous about her. If he had shown the slightest anxiety over her she would have become recklessly daring. But young Fred would as soon have shown tender care for a frisky young porpoise in the water, as Leslie, even had it been his nature to care unduly for any one but Fred Hamilton.

The canoe was approaching swiftly, and the man in it was near enough to be recognised. "I say," cried Fred, "it's Rod McRae. I didn't know he was home. Ship ahoy, there!" he shouted gaily. "Hurrah, and give us a lift; it's too damp for the lady to walk home!"

Leslie Graham looked at the approaching canoeist. She and Fred Hamilton had both attended the same school, Sunday-school and church as Roderick McRae. But she could remember him but dimly as an awkward country boy, in her brief High School days, before she "finished" with a year at a city boarding-school. Her life at school had been all fun and mischief, and rushing away from irksome lessons to more fun at home; his had been all serious hard work, and rushing away from the fascination of his lessons to harder work on the farm. Fred Hamilton had never worked at school, but he knew him better; the free-masonry of boyhood had made that possible.

"Why, what's happened?" cried Roderick as he swept alongside the wreck. "Fred Hamilton! Surely you're not upset?"

"Doesn't look like it, does it?" enquired the young man in the water rather sarcastically. "Here, give this thing a hoist, will you, Rod? I can't understand how such an idiotic thing happened? Miss Graham and I were paddling along as steadily as you are now, and—"

But Roderick was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the girl hanging to the upturned canoe, her eyes grieved and frightened. With a quick stroke he placed himself at her side.

"Why, you're all tired out," he cried. "You must get in here."

She looked up at him gratefully. She had never realised how welcome a sympathetic voice could sound. She answered, not the least like the dauntless Leslie, "I just can't! I can't climb over the bow. It's no use trying."

Roderick was at his best where any one was in distress. His knightly young heart prompted him to do the right thing.

"You don't need to," he said gently. "I can take you in over the side. Here, Fred, come round and help."

Fred came to her, and Roderick slipped down into the bottom of the canoe. He leaned heavily to the side opposite the girl, and extended his hand. "Now, you can do it quite easily," he said encouragingly. "Catch the thwart; there—no, sideways—that's it! Steady, Fred, don't hurry her. There you are. Now!" She had rolled in somehow over the side, and sat soaked and heavy, half-laughing and half-tearful, right at his feet.

"Oh," she said, "I'm making you all wet."

"Well, that's the neatest ever," cried Fred Hamilton in involuntary admiration.

The work of emptying the other canoe, with the help of such an expert, was an easy matter. When it was ready Roderick held it while Fred tumbled in. Stray cushions and paddles, and even an armful of soaking golden-rod were rescued, and then the two young men looked involuntarily at the girl.

"Hop over the fence, Leslie!" cried Fred. He was in high good humour now, for Rod McRae would never tell on a fellow, or chaff him in public about an upset.

But Leslie Graham shook her head. Something strange had happened, she had grown very quiet and grave.

"No," she said in a low voice, "I don't want any more adventures to-night. You'll take me home, won't you—Roderick?" She hesitated just a moment over the name, but remembering she had called him that at school, she ventured.

"It would give me the greatest pleasure," he cried cordially. His diffidence had all vanished, he was master of the situation.

He glanced half-enquiringly at the other young man, to see relief expressed quite frankly on his face.

"All right, Leslie! Thanks ever so, Rod. I can scoot over to the boathouse and get some dry togs, before I go home. And say—you won't say anything about this now, Les, will you?"

The girl's spirits were returning. "Why not?" she asked teasingly. "It wouldn't be fair to keep such a gallant rescue a secret."

"Oh, please don't!" cried Roderick in dismay.

"But it would make such a nice column for The Chronicle," said the girl demurely. "I really can't promise, Fred. Tom Allen would give me ten dollars for it, I am sure."

"If you dare!" cried the young man wrathfully. "I'd never hear the end of it. And your mother would never let you out on the water again, you know that, Les," he added threateningly.

"That's so," she admitted. "Well, I'll see, Freddy. Cheer up. If I do tell I promise to make you the hero of the adventure."

She waved her hand to him laughingly, as Roderick's long strokes sent them skimming away over the darkening water. When they were beyond earshot, she turned to her rescuer.

"It's all right to joke about it now," she said, her tone tremulous, "but it was beginning to be anything but a joke. I—I do believe— Why, I just know that you saved my life, Roderick McRae. And there is one person I am going to tell, I don't care who objects, and that's my father. And you'll hear from him; for he thinks, the poor mistaken man, that his little Leslie is the whole thing!"

And even though Roderick protested vigorously, he could not help feeling that it would be a great stroke of good fortune to have Algonquin's richest and most powerful man feel he was in his debt.



CHAPTER V

FOLLOWING THE GLEAM

When the Inverness bumped against the wharf at Algonquin, the strange girl, standing with her bag in her hand, waiting to step ashore, was surprised to see the late enemy of the boat drive down upon the dock. She was still more surprised to see that his face was beaming with good nature, as he hailed the captain. But then, she did not, as yet, know Lawyer Edward Brians.

"Hech, Jamie, lad!" he shouted. "Hoot! Awa wi ye, mon! Are ye no gaun tae get the fowk ashore the nicht?"

And then there was a long outpouring of strange indistinguishable sounds, which caused the Ancient Mariner to stop smoking and expectorate into Lake Algonquin with a disgusted "Huh!" For Lawyer Ed's Gaelic, though fluent, was a thing to make Highland ears shudder.

At the first appearance of the buggy, the captain had turned away in haughty silence, and went on with his task of seeing that his passengers were safely landed, without so much as a glance at his talkative friend.

But his frigid reception seemed only to tickle Lawyer Ed's sense of amusement. He leaned back in his seat, shut up his eyes, and laughed loudly. "Well, for downright pigheadedness and idiotic pertinacity, commend me to a Scotchman every time," he cried delightedly.

He threw the lines over the dashboard, and sprang out of the buggy, straight, alert and vigorous.

"It's no use, your trying that air of dignity on me, Jimmie McTavish!" he cried, striding over the gang-plank. "You nearly made me lose a train and a client into the bargain. And if I had lost him, that bit of business of yours wouldn't have been worth a puff of smoke, my braw John Hielanman!" He slapped the captain on the back, and a peculiar change came over the latter's face. There was no man in Algonquin who could remain angry at Lawyer Ed and be hammered by him on the back. He was voted the most exasperating person in the world, by people of all ages, and many a time an indignant individual would announce publicly that dire vengeance was about to be launched upon his wicked head. But when all Algonquin waited for the blow to fall, presently Lawyer Ed and the injured party would appear in the most jovial companionship, and once more his execution was postponed. It was as usual this time, the captain's wrath broke, shattered by that friendly blow upon the back. He still kept up a show of taciturnity, by a grumbling monologue concerning the undignified procedure of Irishmen in general, but the Irishman laughed so loud that Captain Jimmie was deceived into thinking he had said something very witty indeed, and laughed too, in spite of himself.

"I'm hunting a young lady," cried Lawyer Ed; "the new teacher. Miss Armstrong hailed me in passing and said I was to drive her up."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Brians," cried Alfred Wilbur, bustling up, "she's over there. I was going to show her the way up myself. It's too bad to trouble you, when you're so busy."

Lawyer Ed eyed him sternly.

"What! Do you think I'd allow you, in all your magnificence, to burst upon the vision of an innocent young girl, first go off, and have her fall in love with you, and get her heart broken? Not much, young man! We'll bring you on the stage gradually. A few ugly old married men like Jimmie here, or a withered old bachelor like myself, will do as preliminaries, and in about six months or so,—ah, well, well,—How do you do, my dear young lady? I'm chairman of the school board and I just drove down to tell you that you are very welcome to Algonquin."

He had pushed Afternoon Tea Willie quite out of sight and followed the captain to where the new teacher stood alone. He took her hand and shook it vigorously, his kind blue eyes beaming a welcome.

"I'm sure we are glad you've come!" he declared again, still more heartily, for he saw the homesickness in the big eyes. "You'll be as happy here as a bob-o-link in a field of clover. I needn't ask you if Captain McTavish took good care of you on the way up. He couldn't help it, with that Hieland heart of his, eh, Jimmie, lad? Whenever we want to make a good impression upon a stranger, Miss Murray, we always see that he comes to Algonquin by boat, for by the time the Inverness carries him for an afternoon, he's so prejudiced in our favour, he never gets over it. Eh, my braw John Hielanman?"

He slapped the captain on the back again, and his forgiveness was complete.

"Now, Miss Murray, I shall show you up to your new home. Give me your bag. Never mind, Alfred Tennyson. You trot round there and tell young Peter to see about that trunk. I'll send a wagon for it. Good-bye, Jimmie. I'll see you at the meeting to-morrow night."

He helped Helen into his buggy and tucked the lap-rug around her, while Mr. Alfred Wilbur held his horse's head, though Lawyer Ed's horse, everyone knew, would stand for a week untethered. He jumped in and started off with a dash that nearly precipitated poor Afternoon Tea Willie into the lake, and away they rattled up the street to the utter discomfiture of the yellow dog and the yellow-and-white dog that were fighting in the middle of Main Street.

It was just the waiting time before the six-o'-clock bells and whistles would break forth into a joyful clamour and send every one out on the street; so the place was very quiet. The pretty streets rose up from the lake, all cool and shady under their green canopy. It was like a little town dropped down into the woods, and in spite of her homesickness and the quiet loneliness of it all, the new-comer felt a sensation of pleasure.

Lawyer Ed gave her no chance to be lonely. He chatted away cheerfully, pointing out this and that place of interest. As they turned off Main Street up a wide avenue of swaying elms, he touched his horse into greater speed, and leaning far over to one side, called her attention to something across the street.

"Look there, now!" he cried impressively. "Isn't that a fine building? Just take a good look at this, Miss Murray. I don't think that in all Algonquin there is a place like it."

"I—I don't think I saw," said Helen, looking about her puzzled, for they had passed nothing but a row of very modest homes. She looked at him enquiringly, to find him leaning back, his eyes shut, and shaking with laughter.

"Never mind. Don't hurt your eyes, child. There's nothing there. But we've just passed my office, on the opposite side, and I saw from the corner of my eye about a half-dozen people waiting for me, all in a bad humour. It's just as well that I shouldn't get a better view of them. Tut, tut, don't apologise. I don't want to hurry back. Patience is a virtue every man should practise, and I believe in giving my clients a whack at it whenever I can. There's the Manse. I've heard Dr. Leslie speak of your father. We knew him by report if not personally. You'll find Doctor Leslie a fine pastor. He'll make you feel at home."

He glanced back towards his office and laughed again. "I'm trying to—well not exactly retire—but to ease off a bit on my business. And I'm going to have a partner, the son of an old friend. Why, he came part of the way on the boat with you."

"Oh, yes, the young man who took the terrible leap," she said. She did not want to confess she had met him before.

"That's nothing for Rod!" laughed Lawyer Ed. "He'd jump twice that distance. Ah, he's a great lad, is Roderick. He's going to make another such man as his father, and that's about the highest praise I can give him. Old Angus McRae—well you must meet him to know what he's like. I believe I think more of Angus McRae—outside my own immediate family—than of any living person, of course always excepting Madame. Bless me! You haven't met her yet, of course?"

"Why, no, I don't think so. Who is she?"

"Madame, my dear Miss Murray, is the handsomest and cleverest and most delightful young lady in all Canada or the United States. And she's your Principal, so you may think yourself fortunate. You two girls will have a grand time together."

Helen felt not a little relieved. A Principal who was a girl of about her own age, and who was evidently possessed of so many charms, would surely not be a formidable person to face on the dread to-morrow.

They had been steadily climbing the hills, under great low-branched maples and elms, and past scented gardens. And now they pulled up in front of a big square brick house set primly in a square lawn.

"Now, here's your boarding-house, my dear," said her guide, springing down and helping her to alight. "This is Grandma Armstrong's place. Remember that she's grandmother to nearly all Algonquin, and don't laugh at her peculiarities when there's any one round. You'll have to when you're alone, just as a safety-valve. You'll like the daughters. The elder one is a bit stiff, but they're fine ladies." He had rung the bell by this time, and now it was opened by a tall handsome lady, slightly over middle age. The Misses Armstrong, because of an old acquaintance with her father, had stepped aside from the strict rules they had hitherto followed, and had taken the new school teacher as a boarder. Helen had often heard her father speak of them and knew, the moment the door opened, that this was Miss Armstrong, the eldest, who had been a belle in her father's day. She belonged so obviously to the house, that Helen had a complete sense of fitness at the sight of her. Like it she was tall, erect and fine looking, in a stately, stiff fashion.

Lawyer Ed presented his charge in his most affable manner, and Miss Armstrong smiled upon him graciously and upon her with some reserve. A boarder, after all, had to be kept at a distance, even though she were the daughter of an old friend.

"And how is Grandma, to-day?" enquired Lawyer Ed. "And Annabel? Isn't she home?"

"Mother has gone to bed this afternoon, Edward, but she is very well, I thank you. She will be disappointed when she hears you were here. Annabel has gone to the meeting of the Club. She will be back presently. I remained at home to welcome Miss Murray."

"Good-bye just now, then, my child," he said paternally, taking Helen's hand. He saw the homesick anguish returning to her big eyes, and he squeezed the hand until it hurt. "You'll have a great time in Algonquin, never fear. The air here will bring the roses back to your cheeks. Won't it, Elinor?"

Miss Armstrong agreed and bade him a gracious good-afternoon, moving out on the steps to see him to the gate. She then led the way up the long steep stair. The ceilings of Rosemount were very high, and every step echoed weirdly. They went along another hall upstairs flanked by two terrible pictures, one a scene of carnage on land—Wellington meeting Bluecher on the field of Waterloo, the other an equally dreadful scene on water—Nelson's death on the Victory. Her bedroom was a big airy place, stiff and formal and in perfect order. The ceiling again impressed her with its vast distance from the floor. In the centre of this one, like the others, was a circular ornamental device of plaster; flowers and fruit and birds, and great bunches of hard white grapes that looked ready to fall heavily upon one's head. One end of the room was almost filled with a black marble mantel and over it hung a picture of Queen Victoria with her family, in the early days of her married life. There was a big low bed of heavy walnut, four high windows with stiff lace curtains, a circular marble-topped table and a tiny writing desk. Miss Armstrong assisted her to remove her hat, expressing the hope that she had had a pleasant trip from Barbay. Helen did not say that her heart had been aching all the way. She merely assured her that the trip had been very comfortable indeed, and that Captain McTavish had done everything to make it enjoyable.

"Jimmie McTavish is a kind creature," said Miss Armstrong. "Very ignorant, and too familiar entirely; but he is well-meaning, for all that. Now, I hope you will feel perfectly at home with us here, Miss Murray. Your father's daughter could not but be welcome at Rosemount. Indeed, I am afraid, had you not been a clergyman's daughter, I should never have consented to taking you. Having any one to board was so foreign to our minds. But Mr. Brians begged us to take you. You see he is chairman of the school board, and always sees to it that the young persons who teach have suitable homes."

"I am so sorry if my coming has inconvenienced you," stammered Helen, for Miss Armstrong's manner was very impressive.

"Oh, not at all, I assure you. When we heard who you were, we consented with pleasure. We have so much more room in this big house than we need. There is a very large family of us, Miss Murray, as you will discover, but now there are only my mother and my sister and I left at Rosemount." Her face grew sad. "But indeed I sometimes have thought recently," she added, growing stately again, "that my dear father would turn in his grave if he knew we were filling Rosemount with boarders."

She paused a moment, and the strange girl was wondering miserably if she should take her bag and move out to some other place, rather than risk disturbing her father's old friend in his last long sleep, when Miss Armstrong went on. "I hope you won't mind, Miss Murray, you are to be as one of the family, you know, and if you would be so good—" she hesitated and a slight flush rose in her face.

"Yes?" asked Helen wonderingly.

"If you would be so good as to not use the word board. I don't know why it should be so offensive to me," she added with a little laugh. "My ears are very sensitive, I suppose. But if you wouldn't mind saying, in the course of your conversation, that you are staying with the Rosemount Armstrongs, it would please me so much."

"Certainly, I shall remember," said Helen, much relieved.

"Thank you so much. And now if you would like to rest for a little after your journey you may. Supper will be served in the course of half-an-hour."

Helen felt a lump growing in her throat that made the thought of food choke her. But she dared not refuse. To remain alone in that big echoing room, was only to invite thoughts of home and other far off and lost joys.

When Miss Armstrong had left her, and her trunk had come bumping up the back stairs and been deposited in the vast closet, she sat down on the black haircloth chair and looked hopelessly around the big dreary room. There rose before her a vision of her own room at the old home, the room that she and her sister Betty had shared. It had rose-bordered curtains and rose-festooned wall-paper and pink and white cushions. And it had a dear mother-face peeping in at the door to chide her gently if she sat too late writing those long letters to Dick.

The memory of it all came over her with such a rush that she felt she must throw herself upon that broad white bed and sob herself sick. But she sat still, holding her hands tightly clenched, and choking back the tears. She had work to do and she must be ready for that work. To give way in private meant inefficiency in public to-morrow. School-teaching was a new, untried field of labour for her, and if she went to bed and cried herself to sleep, as she wanted to do, she would have a headache for to-morrow and she would fail. And she must not fail, she told herself desperately; she dared not fail, for Mother was depending upon her success. And yet she had no idea how that success was to be gained. She knew only too well that she was not fitted for her task. She had never wanted to teach school, and had never dreamed she would need to. Her place had always been at home, and a big place she had filled as Mother's help and the minister's right hand. But her father had insisted upon her taking her teacher's certificate. "It's easy to carry about, Nellie," he was wont to say, "and may come useful some day."

So Helen had gone, with good-natured indulgence of Father's whim, and studied at a training school, with one eye on her books and the other watching for Dick to come up the street. And when she brought home her despised diploma, there was a diamond ring on the hand that placed it on her father's desk. That had been a year ago. And almost immediately after, her father had been taken from them. The old home went next. The boys and girls scattered to earn their own living. Mother had gone with Betty, who had married, and who lived away in the West. And then the last and best treasure had been taken, the diamond with its marvellous lights and colours, and with it had gone out all the light and colour of life.

She was just twenty-three, and she had been given the task of working out a new strange life unaided, with nothing ahead of her but work and loneliness.

At first she had given way to a numb despair, then necessity and the needs of the family aroused her. There was something for her to do, something that had to be done, and back of all the wreck of her life, dimmed by clouds of sorrow, there stood her father's God. In spite of all the despair and dismay she felt instinctively He must be somewhere, behind it all. She did not know as yet, that that assurance spelled hope. But she knew that there was work for her and there was Mother waiting until she should make her a home.

She sprang up, as her misery threatened to overwhelm her again, and began swiftly to change her dress and arrange her hair. She pulled back the stiff curtains of one of the tall windows and leaned out. A soft blue haze, the first glimpse of September's tender eyes, was settling on the distant hills. The sun was setting, and away up the street towards the west flamed a gold and crimson sky, and away down in the east flamed its gold and crimson reflection on the mirror of Lake Algonquin. From the garden below, the scent of the opening nicotine blossoms came up to her.

She was sitting there, trying to admire the beauty of it all, but her heart protesting against the feeling of utter loneliness it bred, when there came a sharp tap on the door. It opened the next moment and a young lady tripped in.

"Good evening, Miss Murray. I just bounced in to say welcome to Rosemount. I'm so glad you've come. I've just been dying to have a girl in the house of my own age."

She caught Helen's two hands in hers with genuine kindliness.

She was a plump fair lady with fluffy yellow hair and big blue eyes. She was dressed in a pink flowered muslin trimmed with girlish frills and wore a big hat wreathed with nodding roses. Helen was puzzled. This wasn't Miss Annabel, then; for her mother had said the Misses Armstrong were both over forty.

"I'm Annabel Armstrong," she said, settling the question. Helen gave her a second look and saw that Miss Annabel carried signs of maturity in her face and form, albeit she carried them very blithely indeed. "And I can't tell you how glad I am you've come. You'll just adore Algonquin. It's the gayest place on earth, a dance or a tea or a bridge or some sort of kettle-drum every day. What a love of a dress! It's the very colour of your eyes, my dear. Come away now; you must meet Mother. She always takes supper in her own room now, and I must carry it to her. Our little maid is about as much use as a pussy-cat and if I'm not in the kitchen every ten minutes to tramp on her tail she'll go to sleep. Come along!"

She danced away down the hall, Helen following her, feeling extremely old and prim. Grandma Armstrong's bedroom was at the back of the house overlooking the orchard and kitchen-garden. She was sitting up in bed, a very handsome little old lady in cap and ribbons. She gave the strange girl's hand a gentle pressure.

"Here she is, Muzzy," cried Miss Annabel in an apologetic tone. "It's too bad you didn't see her sooner, but she was so busy."

"Indeed I generally notice that I am left to the last, when any new person comes to the house," said Grandma Armstrong in a grieved tone. "Well, my dear, I am pleased to see the Rev. Walter Murray's son in my house. You look like him—yes, very much, just the image of him in fact, only of course he was a man and wore a portmanteau when I knew him."

Grandma Armstrong's separate faculties were all alert and as keen as they had ever been in youth. But some strange lack of connection between her tongue and her memory, seemed to have befallen the old lady, so that they did not always agree, and she was wont to intersperse her otherwise quite intelligent conversation with words having no remotest connection with the context.

"A moustache, you mean, Muzzy dear," said her daughter. "Mother forgets you know," she added, in a hasty, low apology to Helen.

"Why do you interrupt me, Annabel? I said a moustache. I hope you sleep well here, my dear. I had that room of yours for some time, but I had to move back here, I could never get to sleep after they put up the Israelite at the corner. It shone right over my bed. Let me see now. You are the second daughter, are you not? Your father was a fine man, my dear. Yes, indeed. We knew him well as a student. He preached one summer in—where was that, Annabel? Alaska?"

"Muskoka, Mother."

"Oh, yes, Muskoka, and the Rev. Walter Hislop, your father, was there as a student."

"Murray, you mean, Mother."

"Don't interrupt me, Annabel. Your uncle preached there two summers, my dear, and I thought my daughter Annabel and he—"

"It was Elizabeth, Mother, not me! Good gracious, how old do you think I am?" demanded Miss Annabel, quite alarmed.

"Oh, Elizabeth, of course. I really thought she and your brother, the Rev. Mr. McIntosh, should have become engaged before the summer was over. But we had other plans for our daughter, and we thought it wiser for her to go to the sea-shore the next summer."

"Now, Mother," said Miss Annabel tactfully. "Miss Murray doesn't want to hear all that ancient history. She has to get her supper. She's tired and hungry."

Helen slept soundly that night. Two big windows of her room looked out to the west where, beyond the town, ran a high wooded ridge, and the low organ tones of the evening wind singing through the trees made her forget her grief and lulled her to sleep.

She set off to her work early in the morning, nervous and apprehensive. Her hostesses all wished her well. Miss Armstrong, in her quiet stately fashion hoped she would find her employment congenial, and Grandma expressed the desire that Miss Carstairs would enjoy her work at the cemetery, a remark which the worried young teacher felt was more appropriate than the kindly old lady guessed. Miss Annabel followed her to the gate, with instructions regarding the road to school. She plucked a big crimson dahlia from its bed and stuck it in the belt of Helen's blue dress.

"Good luck, dearie, and cheer up!" she cried, seeing the look in the sad blue eyes. "School teaching's heaps of fun, I feel sure. Don't worry about it. We're going to have great times in the evenings. There's always something on. Bye bye, and good luck," and she tripped up the garden path waving her hand gaily.

Helen had scarcely gone half a block under the elm boughs, when she heard her name called out in a musical roar from far up the street behind her. She had not been in Algonquin twenty-four hours, but she knew that voice. She was just a bit scandalised as she turned to see a man waving his cane, as he hurried to overtake her. But she had not yet learned that no one minded being hailed half-a-mile away by Lawyer Ed.

He was accompanied by a lady, a tall woman of such ample proportions, that she had some ado to keep up with Lawyer Ed's brisk step. She wore a broad old-fashioned hat tied under her round chin, and a gay flowered muslin dress that floated about her with an easy swaying motion. She wore, too, a pair of soft low-heeled slippers, that gave forth a soothing accompaniment to the rhythm of her movements. She was surrounded by a perfect bodyguard of children. They danced behind her and ahead of her, they clung to her hands and peeped from the flowing muslin draperies, while she moved among them, serene and smiling like a great flower surrounded by a cloud of buzzing little bees.

"Good morning, good morning!" shouted the chairman of the school board. "Abroad bright and early and ready for work! Well, well, well," he added admiringly, as he shook her hands violently, "if the Algonquin air hasn't commenced to do its work already! Now, my dear, brace up and don't be frightened. It is my duty as chairman of the school board to introduce you to your stern principal. Miss Murray, I have the honour of presenting you to Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, known in private life as Mrs. Adam; but if you are as nice as you look, you may one day be admitted to the inner circle of her friends, and then you will be allowed to call her Madame."

As the lady took her hand and turned upon her a smile in proportion to her size, Helen suddenly realised why she had seemed so familiar even at the first glance. She was exactly like the wonderful fairy who cared for the water-babies at the bottom of the sea. And the resemblance was further heightened by the presence of the babies themselves who came swarming about to settle all over her, and when shoved out of the way, only came swarming back.

"Bless me, what a mistake!" she cried. "It's you that's the Principal and I'm the assistant. I'm so thankful you're young, my dear. I can't stand old folks, and middle-aged people are my abhorrence. I told Edward Brians that if he put me down there all alone with a middle-aged woman,—a young gay thing like me,—I just wouldn't stand it."

"I don't think there are any old people in Algonquin, are there?" asked Helen.

They were moving on down the street now, and their going was something of a triumphal procession. At every turn some one joined them,—young or old, and from every side greetings were called after them, until the bewildered stranger felt as if she had become part of a circus parade. She was feeling almost light-hearted as the gay throng moved forward, when they passed their escort's office, and in the doorway stood the young Mr. McRae who reminded her so sadly of the past.

"Hooray, Rod," roared his chief. "A graun beginnin', ma braw John Hielanman! Come down here off that perch and do your respects to the March of Education!"

Roderick obeyed very willingly. He had been a pupil of Madame's in his primary days, notwithstanding her extreme youth, and she welcomed him home and hoped he would be as good a boy as he had been when she had him. Then Lawyer Ed introduced him to the new teacher. She shook hands, but she did not say they had met before, and Roderick tactfully ignored the fact also, for which he fancied she gave him a glance of gratitude. They moved on but soon the March of Education was again interrupted. Across the street, Doctor Archie Blair, with his black satchel in his hand and a volume of Burns beneath his arm, was preparing to climb into his buggy for a drive into the country. He stepped aside for a moment and crossed the street to tell Madame how glad he was to see her back from her holidays, for the town had been a howling wilderness without her.

"This is Miss Murray, the new teacher, I know," he added before Lawyer Ed could introduce him. "You will learn soon, Miss Murray, that if you want to find a stranger in Algonquin, especially a strange young lady, you have just to hunt up Lawyer Brians and there she is."

"And a very good place to be, Archie Blair," said Madame. "If every one looked after strangers as well as he does there wouldn't be many lonely people."

"Hear, hear, Madame," roared Lawyer Ed. "No one knows my virtues as you do. Did ye hear yon, Aerchie mon?"

"The trouble is, Miss Murray," said the doctor, without paying the slightest attention to the other two, "the trouble is that this gentleman doesn't give any one else a chance to do a good deed. He does everything himself. No one in Algonquin minds neglecting his duty, for he knows that Mr. Brians would be there ahead of him and get it done anyway, so where's the use of bothering? I'm a member of the school board, and I might be betraying my trust if I encouraged you to neglect your work, but I feel I ought to tell you that if any day you would like to take a few hours off, why, do so, Mr. Brians will teach for you."

There was a great deal more banter and fun, and the March of Education was resumed with small recruits in clean pinafores darting out of homes here and there to join it. It ended at last at the battered gate of the little schoolhouse. The East Ward was a small part of the town, consisting mostly of lake, so the population was not very large. There were but two grades, of which Mrs. Adam taught the younger.

The children scampered over the yard, and swarmed into the building. Lawyer Ed ran about, scattering pink "bull's-eyes" all over the floor and yard, calling, "Chukie, Chukie!" with the whole school at his heels like a flock of noisy chickens. And when he had the place in an uproar, he shouted good-bye and rushed away in a fit of laughter.

Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby sank heavily into a chair, with a relieved smile, and said, as Helen hung up her hat, and looked about apprehensively, "Now, my dear child, I remember my first day at school-teaching distinctly, and if yours is anything the same, you are scared to death. So if you want to know anything or need any help, you just come right along into my room, and we'll fix it up. And whatever you do, don't worry. We're going to have just a glorious time together, you and I."

And the new teacher went to her first day's work with a heart far less heavy than she would have believed possible. Far ahead had begun to show the first faint glimmer of the light that was leading her through sorrow and pain to a higher and better life. And all unconsciously she had begun to follow its gleam.



CHAPTER VI

LAUNCHING HIS VESSEL

Roderick had been but two days in the office of Edward Brians, barrister, and already he had learned a great deal. Two important facts, not directly connected with the legal profession, had been impressing themselves upon him. The first was that if he were going to reach the goal of success that shone so alluringly ahead of him, he must give every effort and every minute of time to his work; and the second was that he was going to have a hard time concentrating upon it in the various interests of the little town that seemed to demand his attention.

And there was his chief setting him a bad example. The young man had spent part of his first morning wandering through the mass of documents and scraps of paper which Lawyer Ed called his book-keeping. Between items of a professional nature were memoranda or reports of session meetings, Highland Club meetings, political meetings, country tea-meetings, everything and anything except law. What there was of the latter was connected only with such clients as were of ample means. All the poor folk for miles around came to Lawyer Ed with their troubles and were advised, scolded, pulled or paid out of them, and never so much as a stroke of a pen to record the good deed. If they paid him, well and good; if they did not, so much the better. And the price of a ticket to the Holy Land and back—that trip which had not yet materialised—might have been many times written down, had Lawyer Ed known anything about book-keeping. But Lawyer Ed's policy in all his career, had been something the same as that of his friend Doctor Blair across the way—to keep his people of his practice well, rather than to cure them when they were ill. So if he could manage it none of his clients ever went into a law-court. It was good for the clients, but bad for such things as trips abroad. Roderick did not see that side of his chief's book-keeping. He did not know that the man could put through more work in an hour than most men could in a day, and saw only the meetings recorded which took so much of his time. And he said to himself that that was not the way to become great. Some day he intended to be one of the leading advocates of Canada. He was not conceited. His was only the boundless hopefulness of youth coupled with the assurance which experience had already given him, that whenever he set his mind to anything, he accomplished it, no matter how many difficulties stood in the way. So he was determined to concentrate all his efforts on his work, and as for serving humanity, he could do it best, he assured himself, by being a success in his profession.

He was just entering upon his second day when his advice was sought from an unexpected source and in connection with an entirely new subject. Lawyer Ed had gone out and Roderick was seated at his desk when some one entered the hall and tapped hesitatingly on the inner door. Roderick called an invitation to come in, and Mr. Alfred Wilbur, in perfect white ducks and white canvas shoes, stepped inside.

"So you've come to be Mr. Brians' partner, haven't you, Mr. McRae?" he enquired. Mr. Wilbur was a well-mannered young man and had never adopted the easy familiar way of naming people which was current in the town.

"Say rather his office-boy, for a while," said Roderick.

Mr. Wilbur protested. "Oh, now, Mr. McRae, you're just quite too modest. Every one's saying how well you did at college and school; and that you're going to make your mark—you know you are."

Roderick wondered why the young man should take such pains to be polite to him.

"Did you want to see Lawyer Ed?" he asked.

"No, no, thank you," he cried in alarm. "He's not in, is he? No, I just wanted to see you, Mr. McRae—not professionally you understand but—that is—personally,—on a very sacred matter."

His voice dropped to a whisper, he crossed his feet in front of him, then drew them under his chair, twirled his hat, smoothed down the back of his head vigorously, and looked in dismay at the floor.

"I hope I can do something for you," said Rod encouragingly, feeling sorry for his evident distress.

"Thank you so much!" cried the young man gratefully. "It's about—that is—I think, an old acquaintance of yours—Miss Murray, the new teacher in the East Ward. She is an old acquaintance, isn't she?"

It was Roderick's turn to feel hot and look embarrassed. He answered his first client very shortly.

"No, she isn't."

"Oh! I thought—you went and spoke to her on the boat!"

"So I did."

"But you met her before surely?" asked the young man, aghast at the notion of Roderick's boldness.

"Yes."

"In Toronto?"

"Yes."

"Long ago?"

"Last autumn."

"Is her home there?"

"I believe so. It was then."

"Oh, you don't know her very well then?"

"No, I don't. And I don't know why on earth I've got to be put through a catechism about it."

"Oh, say! You really must think I'm awful!" cried the poor young man contritely. "I do beg your pardon, Mr. McRae. It really must have sounded shocking to you. But, well—I—did you ever meet a young—any one whom you knew—at first sight—was the one person in all the world for you?" His voice sank. The day was cool and breezy, but poor Afternoon Tea Willie's face was damp and hot and he wiped it carefully with his fine hem-stitched handkerchief, murmuring apologies.

"No, I never did," said Roderick quite violently, for no reason at all.

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," murmured his visitor, vaguely alarmed. "You can't understand my feelings then. But that's really what I felt when I saw her. It was a revelation, one of those swift certain intuitions of the soul, and I—you don't mind my telling you this, do you, Mr. McRae?"

"Oh, no, not if you don't mind," said Roderick.

"It's so good of you," said poor Afternoon Tea Willie. "You were the only one I could come to, the only one who seemed to know her. She boards at Miss Armstrong's, but Miss Annabel—you know Miss Annabel? No? Well, I wouldn't for worlds say anything against a lady, but Miss Annabel doesn't seem to like me. I don't blame her, you know, but I don't like to go there. It—I seem to bother her dreadfully, so I thought—I knew you wouldn't mind introducing me some time, would you?"

"I really don't know Miss Murray well enough to do that," said Roderick decidedly. "And I wish you wouldn't say anything about our having met before. I don't think she remembers me very well. Ask Mr. Brians to introduce you."

"I did, but he refused."

"Perhaps he was only in fun, try him again—or Mrs. Adam. She teaches with her."

"Oh my! the very person." Mr. Wilbur sprang up. "Oh, I can't think why I never thought of her before. I'll call on Madame this afternoon. I can't thank you enough, Mr. McRae, for the kind suggestion." The young man hurried out, profusely expressing his gratitude. Afternoon Tea Willie had absolutely nothing in the world to do, but he was always in a hurry. Perhaps the reason was that the ladies of the town ordered him about so. He was the most obliging young man, and being always available, he was used to the utmost, and was driven like a galley slave from dawn to dark. As he went down the steps he turned back and looked up at Roderick rapturously.

"Say!" he whispered. "Did you ever see such eyes? Don't they make you feel just as if you were going down in an elevator?"

But Roderick turned quickly away, with an unreasonable and very unbusinesslike desire to kick his first client down the steps. He had almost closed the door behind him when a loud clear voice from the street called his name. It was just four o'clock, the hour when all the young ladies of Algonquin, dressed in their best, walked down to the post-office for the afternoon mail which came in a half-hour earlier. This afternoon post-office parade was a social function, for only people of leisure and distinction were at liberty at that hour. The young gentlemen from the bank generally emerged about that time too, and came striding down to the post-office looking worried and flurried as became gentlemen with the finances of the whole town and half the country weighing them down. After they had all met at the post-office, they went up to the ice-cream and candy palace on Main Street, or out on the lake, or strolled off into the park.

It was a member of the post-office parade who was hailing Roderick so gaily. A pretty group was rustling past the office, all muslin frills and silk sashes and flowers of every colour, and the prettiest and best dressed of them all came running up the steps to his side, with a swish of silken skirts and a whiff of violet perfume.

It was Miss Leslie Graham, the girl he had helped out of the lake, not forlorn and bedraggled now, but immaculate and dainty, from the rose wreath on her big hat to the tip of her white kid shoe.

"Hello!" she cried gaily. "I thought you'd surely 'phone over to see whether I needed to make my will or not. You're not much of a lawyer."

Roderick laughed. She was so frank and boyish that she put him quite at his ease.

"Well,—not knowing I was the family advocate, I didn't like to," he said slyly.

She laughed delightedly. "You're going to be after this, I can tell you. Daddy's out of town and he doesn't know yet!"

"There's no need to worry him by telling."

"Oh, but there just is. I haven't told a soul yet, and I nearly had to commit murder to keep it from Mother. Fred's in a pink fit every minute for fear I'll let it out. I've got heaps of fun holding it over his head. It makes him good and obedient. Is Lawyer Ed in?"

"No. Do you wish to see him?"

"No, of course not. I just wondered if he wouldn't keep house, though, for a few minutes, while you came along and joined the bunch. We're all going to make Alf take us for ice-cream. We spied him leaving here. Can't you come?"

"Thank you, but I'm afraid I couldn't leave," said Roderick, rather taken aback by her frankness. That ideal woman, who sat dimly enthroned in the recesses of his heart, never offered her favours, they had to be sued for, and she was apt to sit in judgment on the girl who departed from her strict rule.

"Come on, Les!" called a voice from the lingering group she had left. "Here's Alf. He's going to treat us all. Ho! A-a-lf!" The young ladies of Algonquin, had lived in such close proximity to each other from childhood that a playmate could always be summoned even from the other end of the town by a clarion call, and they had never seen any reason for changing their convenient method when long skirts and piled-up hair might have been supposed to demand a less artless manner. But then every one shouted across blocks, and besides, every one knew that Afternoon Tea Willie just dearly loved to be yelled at. He whirled about now, waved his hat, and came hurrying back, with the peculiar jerky irregular motion of his feet, that always marked his movements.

"Hurrah, Leslie!" called her companions again.

"Coming!" she cried. "So sorry you can't come," she added, turning to Roderick, "but we'll give you another invitation." She looked disappointed, and a little inclined to pout, but she waved her hand as she ran down the steps and joined the group of lace and flowers now fluttering down the side-walk towards the ice cream parlour.

"Leslie's made a new conquest," cried a tall girl with flashing black eyes. "He seemed frantically anxious to come with you, my dear. I don't see how you got rid of him."

"Who is he, Les?" cried another. "If it's a new young man come to this girl-ridden town you simply have got to pass him round and introduce him."

"Why, he's Lawyer Ed's new partner, you goosie," cried a dozen voices, for it was inexcusable for any young lady not to know all about Lawyer Ed's business.

"A lawyer, how perfectly lovely!" cried a plump little girl with pink cheeks and dancing eyes. "It's such a relief to see some one beside bank boys. I'm going to ask his advice about suing Afternoon Tea Willie for breach of promise. What's his name, Leslie?"

"Why, his name's Roderick McRae," cried the young lady with the black eyes. "I remember when he used to go to school in a grey homespun suit with the hay sticking all over it. He's the son of old Angus McRae who used to bring our cabbage and lettuce to the back door!"

"Mercy!" the plump little girl gave a shriek. "Where in the world did you pick him up, Leslie?"

The girl whirled about and faced her companions, her eyes blazing, her checks red. "I didn't pick him up at all!" she cried hotly. "He picked me up the other night, out of the lake over by Breezy Point, where Fred Hamilton upset me out of his canoe. And if Roderick McRae hadn't come along I'd have been drowned. So now!"

It had all come out in a rush. She had fully intended to shield Fred. But she could not see her preserver scoffed at by those Baldwin girls. Immediately there was a chorus of enquiries and exclamations. Afternoon Tea Willie was overcome with distress and apologised for not being there. Old Angus McRae's son immediately became a hero.

The little plump girl with the big blue eyes sighed enviously. "Oh dear! How lucky! I think it's a shame all the good things happen to you, Leslie; and he's so handsome!"

"I'm going to ask him to join our tennis club," said Leslie, looking round rather defiantly.

Leslie Graham, by virtue of the fact that her mother belonged to the reigning house of Armstrong, and her father was the richest man in Algonquin, was leader of the younger social set. But Miss Anna Baldwin of the black eyes was her most powerful rival. They were constant companions and very dear friends, and never agreed upon anything. So immediately upon Miss Graham's daring announcement that this new and very exclusive club should be entered by one not in their set, Miss Baldwin cried, "Oh, how perfectly sweet and democratic! Our milkman saved our house from burning down one morning last winter, don't you remember, Lou? We must make Mamma ask him to her next tea!"

Thereupon the group broke up into two sections, one loudly proclaiming its democratic principles, the other as vigorously upholding the necessity for drawing rigid social lines. And they all swept into the ice-cream palace, like a swarm of hot, angry bees, followed by Afternoon Tea Willie in great distress, apologising now to one side, now to the other.

Another call from his work came to Roderick the next afternoon when he paid his first visit to Doctor Leslie. The old Manse did not look just as hospitable as of old, there were no crowds on the veranda and in the orchard any more. For the foster mother of the congregation had left her children mourning, and gone to continue her good work in a brighter and better world.

Viney was still in the kitchen, however, doing all in her power to make the lonely minister comfortable. She had been away from the Manse for some years in the interval, but was now returned with a half-grown daughter to help her. Viney had left Mrs. Leslie to marry "Mahogany Bill," a mulatto from the negro settlement out in Oro. But Bill had been of no account, and after his not too sadly mourned demise, his wife, promoted to the dignified title of Mammy Viney, had returned with her little girl to the Algonquin Manse, and there she was still.

"And your father has you home at last, Roderick," said the minister, rubbing his hands with pleasure and surveying the young man's fine honest face with affection. "He has lived for this day. I hope you won't get so absorbed in your practice that you won't be able to run out to the farm often."

"Aunt Kirsty will see to that," laughed Roderick.

The minister beamed. "I'm afraid I shall get into her bad books then, for I am going to keep you here as often as possible. You are just the young man I want in the church, Roderick—one who will be a leader of the young men. Algonquin is changing," he added sadly. "Perhaps because it is growing rapidly. I am afraid there is a rather fast set of young men being developed here. It makes my heart ache to see fine young fellows like Fred Hamilton and Walter Armstrong learning to gamble, and yet that is just what is happening. There's a great work here for a strong young man with just your upbringing, my boy. We must save these lads from themselves—'Who knoweth,'" he added with a smile, "'but thou hast come to the Kingdom for such an hour.'"

There was a great deal more of the same earnest call to work, and Roderick went away conscious of a slight feeling of impatience. It was just what his father was always saying, but how was he to attend to his work, if he were to have all the responsibility of the young men of the town and all the people of Willow Lane upon him? He was inclined to think that every man should be responsible for himself. He was kind-hearted and generous when the impulse came, but he did not want to be reminded that his life's work was to be his brother's keeper. His work was to be a lawyer. He did not yet realise that in being his brother's keeper he would make of himself the best kind of lawyer.

The next evening, when he prepared to go home, Lawyer Ed declared he must just take his horse and drive him out to the farm and have a visit with Angus and a drink of Aunt Kirsty's butter-milk. So, early in the evening, they drove through the town down towards the Pine Road. Willow Lane still stood there. The old houses were more dilapidated than ever, and there were more now than there used to be. Doctor Blair's horse and buggy stood before one of them. Willow Lane was on low, swampy ground, and was the abode of fevers and diseases of all sorts.

As they whirled past it, Lawyer Ed waved his whip towards it in disgust. "That place is a disgrace to Algonquin," he blustered. "We boast of our town being the most healthful and beautiful in Ontario, and it's got the ugliest and the most unsanitary spot just right there that you'd find in Canada. If J. P. gets to be mayor next year he'll fix it up. He's having it drained already. I hope you'll get interested in municipal affairs, Rod. I tell you it's great. I'm so glad I'll have more time for town affairs now that you're here. But you must get going there too. There's nothing so bad for a professional man as to get so tied down to his work that he can't see an inch beyond it. You can't help getting interested in this place. It's going ahead so. Now, the lake front there—"

Lawyer Ed was off on his pet scheme, the beautifying of that part of the lake front that was now made hideous by factory and mill and railroad track and rows of tumble-down boathouses.

And Roderick listened half-heartedly, interested only because it interested his friend. They passed along the Jericho Road, with its sweet-smelling pines; the soft mists of early autumn clothed Lake Algonquin in a veil of amethyst. The long heavy grass by the roadside, and masses of golden-rod shining dimly in the evening-light told that summer had finished her task. She was waiting the call to leave.

Lawyer Ed was not half through with the esplanade along the lake front when they reached Peter McDuff's home. It was a forlorn old weather-beaten house with thistles and mullen and sturdy burdocks growing close to the doorway. An old gnarled apple-tree, weary and discouraged looking, stood at one side of the house, its blackened branches touching the ground. At the other lay a broken plow, on top of a heap of rubbish. A sagging wood-pile and a sorry-looking pump completed the dreariness.

And yet there were signs of a better day. The dilapidated barn was well-built, the fences had once been strong and well put together, and around the house were the struggling remains of an old garden, with many a flower run wild among the thistles. The history of the home had followed that of its owner. Peter Fiddle had once been a highly respected man, with not a little education. His wife had been a good woman, and when their boy came, for a time, the father had given up his wild ways and his drinking and had settled down to work his little farm. But he never quite gave up the drink, though Angus McRae's hand held him back from it many and many a time. But Angus had been ill for a couple of years, and Peter had gone very far astray when the helping hand was removed.

He had gone steadily downward until his powers were wasted and his health ruined. His wife gave up the struggle, when young Peter was but a child, and closed her tired eyes on the dirt and misery of her ruined home. Then Angus McRae had regained his health and his grip on Peter, and since then, with many disappointments and backslidings, he had managed to bring him struggling back to a semblance of his old manhood. He was not redeemed yet. But old Angus never gave up hope.

Poor Young Peter had grown up dull of brain and heavy of foot, handicapped before birth by the drink. But he had clung doggedly to that one idea which Angus McRae had drilled into him, that he must, as he valued his life, avoid that dread thing which had ruined his father and killed his mother.

Lawyer Ed pulled up his horse before the house. Young Peter had not yet come in with the Inverness, but he looked about for Peter Fiddle. He had been sober for a much longer time than usual in this interval, and both he and Angus were keeping an anxious, hopeful eye upon him.

"I wonder where Peter is," he said.

For answer Roderick pointed down the road before them. A horse and wagon stood close to the road-side. They drove up to it, and there, stretched on the seat of his wagon, his horse cropping the grass by the way-side, lay poor old Peter, dead drunk.

"Well, well, well!" cried Lawyer Ed in mingled disgust and disappointment. "He's gone again, and your father had such hopes of him!" He gave the lines to Roderick and leaped out.

"Hi, Peter!" he shouted, shaking the man violently. "Wake up! It's time for breakfast, man!"

But Peter Fiddle made no more response than a log. And then a look of boyish mischief danced into Lawyer Ed's young eyes.

"Come here, Rod!" he cried. "Let's fix him up and see what he'll do when we get back."

Roderick alighted and helped unhitch the old horse from the wagon. They led him back to the house, watered him, put him into the old stable and fed him. When they returned, Peter still lay asleep on the wagon seat, and they drove off. Lawyer Ed in a fit of boyish mirth.

It was heavy news for old Angus when they sat around the supper table, eating Aunt Kirsty's apple pie and cream; but the good Samaritan was not discouraged. "Well, well," he said with a sigh, "he kept away from it longer this time than ever. He's improving. Eh, eh, poor body, poor Peter!"

"It would seem as if the work of the Good Samaritan is never done, Angus," said Lawyer Ed. "I suppose there will always be thieves on the Jericho Road."

"I was just wondering to-day," said Angus thoughtfully, "if, while we go on picking up the men on the Jericho Road, we couldn't be doing something to keep the thieves from doing their evil work. There's Peter now. If we can't keep him away from the drink, don't you think we ought to try to keep the drink away from him?"

"Lawyer Ed'll have to get a local option by-law passed in Algonquin, Father," said Roderick.

"Eh, Lad," cried the old man, his face radiant, "it is your father would be the happy man to see that day. There is a piece of work for you two now."

"I'm ready," cried Lawyer Ed enthusiastically. "If I could only see that cursed traffic on the run it would be the joy of my life to encourage it with a good swift kick. We'll start a campaign right away. Won't we, Rod?"

"All right," cried Roderick, pleased at the look in his father's face. "You give your orders. I'm here to carry them out."

"There, Angus! You've got your policeman for the Jericho Road. We'll do it yet. If we get the liquor business down, as Grandma Armstrong says, we'll knock it conscientious."

Old Angus followed them to the gate when they drove away, his heart swelling with high hope. He would live to see all his ambitions realised in Roderick. He sat up very late that night and when he went to bed and remembered how the Lad had promised to help rid Peter of the drink curse, he could not sleep until he had sung the long-meter doxology. He sang it very softly, for Kirsty was asleep and it might be hard to explain to her if she were disturbed; nevertheless he sang it with an abounding joy and faith.

As Roderick and Lawyer Ed drove homeward, down the moon-lit length of the Pine Road; they were surprised to hear ahead of them, within a few rods of Peter Fiddle's house, the sound of singing. Very wavering and uncertain, now loud and high, now dropping to a low wail, came the slow splendid notes of Kilmarnock to the sublime words of the 103rd psalm.

The two in the buggy looked at each other. "Peter!" cried Lawyer Ed in dismay.

When Old Peter was only a little bit drunk he inclined to frivolity and gaiety, and was given to playing the fiddle and dancing, but when he was very drunk, he was very solemn, and intensely religious. He gave himself to the singing of psalms, and if propped up would preach a sermon worthy of Doctor Leslie himself.

A turn in the road brought him into sight. There, between the silver mirror of the moonlit lake and the dark scented green of the forest, insensible to the beauty of either, sat the man. He was perched perilously on the seat of his wagon and was swaying from side to side, swinging his arms about him and singing in a loud maudlin voice, the fine old psalm that he had learned long, long ago before he became less than a man.

Lawyer Ed pulled up before him.

"Oh Peter, Peter!" he cried, "is this you?"

Peter Fiddle stopped singing, with the righteously indignant air of one whose devotions have been interrupted by a rude barbarian.

"And who will you be," he demanded witheringly, "that dares to be speaking to the McDuff in such a fashion? Who will you be, indeed?"

"Come, come, Peter, none of that," said his friend soothingly. "I cannot think who you are. You surely can't be my old friend, Peter McDuff, sitting by the roadside this way. Who are you, anyway?"

Peter became suddenly grave. The question raised a terrible doubt in his mind. He looked about him with the wavering gaze of a man on board a heaving ship. His unsteady glance fell on the empty wagon shafts lying on the ground. He looked at them in bewilderment, then took off his old cap and scratched his head.

"How is this, I'd like to know?" demanded Lawyer Ed, pushing his advantage. "If you're not Peter McDuff, who are you? And where is the horse gone?"

Roderick climbed out of the buggy, smothering his laughter, and leaving the two to argue the question, he went after the truant horse which might help to establish his master's lost identity. Lawyer Ed dismounted and helped him hitch it, and apparently satisfied by its reappearance, Peter stretched himself on the seat and went soundly asleep again. He lay all undisturbed while they drove him in at his gate, and put his horse away once more. And he did not move even when they lifted him from his perch and, carrying him into the house, put him into his bed.

And just as they entered the town they met poor young Peter plodding slowly and heavily towards his dreary home.

"We must do something for those two, Rod," said Lawyer Ed, shaking his head pityingly. "We must get Local Option or something that'll help Peter."

But Roderick was thinking of what Miss Leslie Graham had said, and wondering if it might mean that he would be asked to handle the big affairs of Graham and Company.



CHAPTER VII

"MOVING TO MELODY"

The first Sunday that Angus McRae drove along the lake shore and up to the church with Lawyer Ed's partner sitting at his side, he was praying, all the way, to be delivered from the sin of pride. They left Aunt Kirsty at home as usual, with her Bible and her hymn-book, for the poor lady had grown so stout that she could not be lifted into buggy or boat or conveyance of any kind. They started early, but stopped so often on the road that they were none the earlier in arriving. For Angus must needs pause at the McDuff home, to see that young Peter was ready for church, and that old Peter was thoroughly sobered. And there was a huge bouquet of Aunt Kirsty's asters to be left at Billy Perkins's for the little girl who was sick. There were sounds of strife in Mike Cassidy's home too, and Angus dismounted and went in to reason with Mike and the wife on the incongruity of throwing the dishes at each other, when they had spent the morning at mass.

So when the Good Samaritan had attended to all on the Jericho Road there was not much time left, and the church bells were ringing when they drove under the green tunnel of Elm Street; the Anglican, high, resonant and silvery, the Presbyterian, with a slow, deep boom, and between the two, and harmonising with both, the mellow, even roll of the Methodist bell. The call of the bells was being given a generous obedience, for already the streets were crowded with people. From the hills to the north and the west, from the level plain to the south they came, on foot, and in buggies. Even the people who lived across the lake or away down the shore were there, some having crossed the water in boats or launches. This means of conveyance, however, was regarded with some disfavour, as it too perilously resembled Sunday boating. The matter had even been brought up in the session by Mr. McPherson, who declared he objected to it, for there was no good reason why Christian people could not walk on the earth the Almighty had provided for them, on the Sabbath day.

Roderick put away the horse into the shed, smiling tenderly when he found his father waiting at the gate for him. He wanted to walk around to the church door with his boy, so that they might meet his friends together. They were received in a manner worthy of the occasion, for the four elders who were ushering all left their posts and came forward to greet Angus McRae, knowing something of what a great day in his life this Sabbath was. J. P. Thornton and Jock McPherson ushered on one side of the church, Lawyer Ed and Captain McTavish on the other, a very fitting arrangement, which mingled the old and the new schools. Only Lawyer Ed could never be kept in his own place, but ran all over the church and ushered wheresoever he pleased.

The elders of Algonquin Presbyterian church were at their best when showing the people to their seats on a Sabbath morning. Each man did it in a truly characteristic manner. Captain Jimmie received the worshippers in a breezy fashion, as though the church were the Inverness and he were calling every one to come aboard and have a bit run on the lake and a cup-a-tea, whatever. Mr. McPherson shook hands warmly with the old folk, but kept the young people in their places, and well did every youngster know that did he not conduct himself in the sanctuary with becoming propriety, the cane the elder carried would likely come rapping down smartly on his unrighteous knuckles. J. P. Thornton's welcome was kindly but stately. He had grown stout and slightly pompous-looking during the passing years, and his fine, well-dressed figure lent quite an air of dignity to the whole church. But Lawyer Ed, ushering a stranger into the church, was a heart-warming sight. He seemed made for the part. He met one half-way down the steps with outstretched hands, marched him to the best seat in the place, even if he had to dislodge one of the leading families to do it, thrust a Bible and a hymn-book into his hand, and enquired if he were sure he would be comfortable, all in a manner that made the newcomer feel as if the Algonquin church had been erected, a minister and ciders appointed, and a congregation assembled all for the express purpose of edifying him on this particular Sabbath morning.

He captured Angus McRae and showed him to his seat this morning with a happy bustle, for his pride and joy in the Lad's return was only second to his own father's. Roderick sat beside his father in their old pew near the rear of the church, gazing about him happily at the familiar scene. The people were filling up the aisles, with a soft hushed rustle. There was Fred Hamilton and his father, and Dr. Archie Blair and his family. Dr. Blair was rarely too busy to get to church on a Sunday morning, though he made a loud pretence of being very irreligious. It was rumoured that he carried a volume of Burns to church in his pocket instead of a Bible, a tale which the Doctor enjoyed immensely and took care not to contradict. There was a silken rustle at Roderick's right hand, a breath of perfume, and Leslie Graham, in a wonderful rose silk dress and big plumed hat, came up the aisle, followed by her father and mother. The Grahams were the most fashionable people in the church, and Mr. Graham was the only man who wore a high silk hat. He had been the first to wear the frock coat, but while many had followed his example in this regard, he was the only man who had, as yet, gone the length of the silk hat. Of course, Doctor Leslie had one, but every one felt that it was quite correct for a minister to wear such a thing. It was part of the clerical garb, and anyway he wore it only at weddings and funerals, showing it belonged to the office, rather than to the man. So Alexander Graham's millinery was looked upon with some disfavour. He was a quiet man though, sensitive and retiring, and not given to vain display, and people felt that the sin of the silk hat very likely lay at the door of his fashionable wife and daughter.

The Grahams were no sooner seated than Leslie turned her handsome head, and glancing across the church towards Roderick, gave him a brilliant smile. But the young man did not catch the gracious favour; he was looking just then at a group passing up the aisle to a seat almost in front of him; Grandma Armstrong moving very slowly on her eldest daughter's arm, Miss Annabel in a youthful blue silk dress, and behind them a girlish figure in a white gown with a wealth of shining hair gleaming from beneath her wide hat.

Helen Murray had come to church this first Sunday with some fear. Her father's voice spoke to her yet in every minister's tones, and the place and the hour were all calculated to bring up memories hard to bear in public. She was just seated between Grandma and Miss Annabel when the former pulled her sleeve and enquired if she did not think the new gladiators very pretty. The girl followed the old lady's eyes and saw they were indicating the shiny brass electroliers suspended from the ceiling. In happier days Helen had found laughter very easy. Her sense of humour had not been deadened by sorrow, it was only in abeyance, and now she felt it stirring into life. The little incident made her look around with interest. Certainly the Algonquin church was not a place calculated to make one indulge in melancholy. The Presbyterian congregation was a virile one, bright and friendly and full of energy, and with very few exceptions, every one was at least fairly well off. With the aid of a generous expenditure of money they had expressed their congregational life in the decoration of the church; so the place was comfortable and well lighted, and exceedingly bright in colouring. Around three sides ran a gallery with an ornamental railing, tinted pink. The walls were the same colour, except for a bright green dado beneath the gallery, and the vaulted ceiling was decorated with big bouquets of flowers in a shade of pink and green slightly deeper than the walls and the dado. The carpet and the cushions—every inch of the floor was carpeted and every pew cushioned—were a warm bright crimson to match the organ pipes. The high Gothic windows were of brilliant stained glass, which, when the morning sun shone, threw a riot of colour over the worshippers. And indeed everything was warm and bright and shining, from the glittering new electroliers suspended from the pink ceiling, to the crimson baize doors which swung inward so hospitably at one's approach.

The church had been slowly filling, the choir filed into their places, the organ stopped playing Cavalleria Rusticana, a hush fell over the place and Doctor Leslie, his white hair and black gown passing through the changing lights of the windows, came slowly out of the vestry and up to the pulpit. He was an old man now, but a vigorous one, and his sermons were still strong and full of the fire of his earlier years. He had never walked quite so smartly, nor spoken with quite his old vim since the day he had been left alone in the Manse. But through his bereavement his eye had grown a little kindlier, his handshake a little more sympathetic, his voice a little more tender.

As he stood up and opened the Book of Praise to announce the first hymn, his glance involuntarily travelled, as it always did at the beginning of the service, to where old Angus's white head shone in the amber light of the window, as though a halo of glory were about it. Old Angus had long ago learned to look for that glance, and returned it by a glow from his deep eyes. Whenever they sang the 112th psalm in Algonquin Presbyterian church,

"How blest the man who fears the Lord, And makes His law his chief delight,"

the minister looked down and thought how well the words described the sunny-faced old saint, and Angus looked up and felt how aptly they fitted his pastor.

Dr. Leslie had had Angus in his mind this morning when he chose the 111th psalm for their opening praise, knowing how the old man's heart would be lifted to his God this morning.

"Praise ye the Lord; with my whole heart The Lord's praise I'll declare."

They sang it to "Gainsborough," the favourite tune of the old folk, for it gave an opportunity for restful lingering on every word, and had in it all those much-loved trills and quavers that made up the true accompaniment of a Scottish psalm. They sang it spiritedly, as Algonquin Presbyterians always sang; the choir and the organ on one side, the congregation on the other, each striving to gain the greater volume and power. For many years the choir had won out, for Lawyer Ed was leader, and the whole congregation would have been no match for him alone. But lately he had handed the leadership over to a young man whom he had trained up from the Sunday-school, and gone down to the opposition, where he sometimes gave the organist and the choir all they could do to be heard. And this morning, in his happiness over Roderick's home-coming, he was at his best.

There was only one little rift in the harmony of the whole congregation. In spite of Mr. McPherson's objections, Lawyer Ed and J. P. Thornton had succeeded in putting the "Amen" at the end of the psalms, as well as the hymns, and when the objectionable word came this morning, Jock sat down as he always did, heavily and noisily, exactly on the last word of the psalm proper, and pulled Mrs. Jock's silk wrap to make her give a like condemnation to the bit of popery. Lawyer Ed sat in the pew opposite Jock and heard the protesting creak of Jock's seat when he descended and, in a spirit of mischief, he turned round till he faced the McPherson and rolled out the "Amen" directly at its objector. It was shocking conduct for an elder, as J. P. said afterwards, but then every one knew that though he should become Moderator of the General Assembly, Lawyer Ed would never grow up.

The sermon was to young people. It was a call to them to give their lives in their morning to the true Master and Lord of life. Dr. Leslie took for his text the scene enacted on that great morning when two young fishermen had heard across the shining water that call which, once truly heard by the heart's ear, cannot be resisted, "Come ye after Me." There were young people in the church that morning who heard it as truly as the fisher lads that far gone morning on Galilee, and as truly obeyed it. Helen Murray listened, struggling with tears. She had grown up in a Christian home where the influence of father and mother were such that it was inevitable that she should early become a disciple of the Master they served. But she had faltered in her service since her griefs had come upon her in such a flood. She would never have allowed herself to grow selfish over her joys but sorrow had absorbed her. She did not realise, until this morning, that she was growing selfish over her trouble. The tender call came again—"Come ye after Me," sounding just as sweetly and impelling in the night of sorrow and stress as it ever did in the joyous morning.

Roderick McRae was listening to the sermon too, but he did not hear the Voice. For in his young, eager ears was ringing the siren song of success. He had gone to church regularly in his absence from home, because he knew that the weekly letter to his father would lose half its charm did the son not give an account of the sermon he had heard the Sabbath before. But much listening to sermons had bred in the young man the inattentive heart, even though the ear was doing its duty. Roderick accepted sermons and church-going good-naturedly, as a necessary, respectable formality of life. That it must have a bearing on all life or be utterly meaningless he did not realise. His plans for life had nothing to do with church, and the divine call fell upon his ears unheeded.

When the sermon was drawing to a close, Lawyer Ed scribbled something on a scrap of paper and when he rose to take the offering he passed it up to the minister. Lawyer Ed never in his life got through a sermon without writing at least one note. This one was a request for St. George's, Edinburgh, as the closing psalm. He knew it was not the one selected, but something in the stirring words of the sermon, coupled with his joy over his boy's return, had roused him so that nothing but the hallelujahs of that great anthem could express his feelings.