“Too small,” said Jock from his cramped position on the raft.

“‘A beautiful little property——­’ No.  Oh, listen.  ’A characteristic Cotswold Tudor house’—­doesn’t that sound delicious?  ’Mullioned windows.  Fine suite of reception-rooms, ballroom.  Lovely garden, with trout-stream intersecting’—­heavenly.  ’There are vineries, peach-houses, greenhouses, and pits’—­what do you do with pits?” “Keep bears in them, of course,” said Jock, and added vaguely—­“bear baiting, you know.”

“It isn’t usual to keep bears,” David pointed out.

“No, but if you had them,” Jock insisted, “you would want pits to keep them in.”

“Jock,” said Jean, “you are like the White Knight when Alice told him it wasn’t likely that there would be any mice on the horse’s back.  ’Not very likely, perhaps, but if they do come I don’t choose to have them running all about.’  But I agree with the White Knight, it’s as well to be provided for everything, so we’ll keep the pits in case of bears.”

“They had pits in the Bible,” said Mhor dreamily, as he screwed and unscrewed his steering-wheel, which was also the piano stool, “for Joseph was put in one.”

Jean turned over the leaves of the magazine, studying each pictured house, gloating over details of beauty and of age, then she pushed it away with a “Heigh-ho, but I wish we had a Tudor residence.”

“I’ll buy you one,” David promised her, “when I’m Lord Chancellor.”

“Thank you, David,” said Jean.

By this time the raft had been sunk by a sudden storm, and Jock had grasped the opportunity to go to his books, while Mhor and Peter had laid themselves down on the rug before the fire and were rolling on each other in great content.

Jean and David sat together on the sofa, their arms linked.  They had very little to say, for as the time of departure approaches conversation dies at the fount.

Jean was trying to think what their mother would have said on this last evening to her boy who was going out into the world.  Never had she felt so inadequate.  Ought she to say things to him?  Warn him against lurking evils? (Jean who knew about as much of evil as a “committed linnet"!) But David was such a wise boy and so careful.  It always pinched Jean’s heart to see him dole out his slender stock of money, for there never was a Jardine born who did not love to be generous.

She looked at him fondly.  “I do hope you won’t find it too much of a pinch, David.  The worst of it is, you will be with people who have heaps of money, and I’m afraid you’ll hate to feel shabby.”

“It’s no crime to be poor,” said David stoutly.  “I’ll manage all right.  Don’t you worry.  What I hate is thinking you are scrimping to give me every spare penny—­but I’ll work my hardest.”