“How can she make them all up?” Tommy asked, with respectful homage to Gavinia.

Corp, with his eye on the door, produced from beneath the bed a little book with coloured pictures.  It was entitled “Great Boyhoods,” by “Aunt Martha.”  “She doesna make them up,” he whispered; “she gets them out o’ this.”

“And you back her up, Corp, even when she says I was not your friend!”

“It was like a t’ knife intil me,” replied loyal Corp; “every time I forswore you it was like a t’ knife, but I did it, ay, and I’ll go on doing it if you think my friendship cheapens you.”

Tommy was much moved, and gripped his old lieutenant by the hand.  He also called Gavinia ben, and, before she could ward him off, the masterful rogue had saluted her on the cheek.  “That,” said Tommy, “is to show you that I am as fond of the old times and my old friends as ever, and the moment you deny it I shall take you to mean, Gavinia, that you want another kiss.”

“He’s just the same!” Corp remarked ecstatically, when Tommy had gone.

“I dinna deny,” Gavinia said, “but what he’s fell taking”; and for a time they ruminated.

“Gavinia,” said Corp, suddenly, “I wouldna wonder but what he’s a gey lad wi’ the women!”

“What makes you think that?” she replied coldly, and he had the prudence not to say.  He should have followed his hero home to be disabused of this monstrous notion, for even while it was being propounded Tommy was sitting in such an agony of silence in a woman’s presence that she could not resist smiling a crooked smile at him.  His want of words did not displease Grizel; she was of opinion that young men should always be a little awed by young ladies.

He had found her with Elspeth on his return home.  Would Grizel call and be friendly? he had asked himself many times since he saw her in church yesterday, and Elspeth was as curious.  Each wanted to know what the other thought of her, but neither had the courage to inquire, they both wanted to know so much.  Her name had been mentioned but casually, not a word to indicate that she had grown up since they saw her last.  The longer Tommy remained silent, the more, he knew, did Elspeth suspect him.  He would have liked to say, in a careless voice, “Rather pretty, isn’t she?” but he felt that this little Elspeth would see through him at once.

For at the first glance he had seen what Grizel was, and a thrill of joy passed through him as he drank her in; it was but the joy of the eyes for the first moment, but it ran to his heart to say, “This is the little hunted girl that was!” and Tommy was moved with a manly gladness that the girl who once was so fearful of the future had grown into this.  The same unselfish delight in her for her own sake came over him again when he shook hands with her in Aaron’s parlor.  This glorious creature with the serene eyes and the noble shoulders had been the hunted child of the Double Dykes!  He would