So Jock went away with the load on his heart somewhat lightened.  He could not get home on Saturday till very late, when dinner had long been over.  Coming softly in, through the dimly lighted drawing-rooms, over the deeply piled carpets, he heard Babie’s voice reading aloud in the innermost library, and paused for a moment, looking through the heavy velvet curtains over the doorway before withdrawing one and entering.  His mother’s face was in full light, as she sat helping Armine to illuminate texts.  She did indeed look worn and thin, and there were absolute lines on it, but they were curves such as follow smiles, rather than furrows of care; feet rather of larks than of crows, and her whole air was far more cheerful and animated than that of her youngest son.  He was thin and wan, his white cheeks contrasting with his dark hair and brown eyes, which looked enormous in their weary pensiveness, as he lent back languidly, holding a brush across his lips in a long pause, while she was doing his work.  Barbara’s bright keen little features were something quite different as, wholly wrapped up in her book, she read—-

“Oh! then Ladurlad started,
As one who, in his grave,
Has heard an angel’s call,
Yea, Mariately, thou must deign to save,
Yea, goddess, it is she,
Kailyal—-”

“Are you learning Japanese?” asked Jock, advancing, so that Armine started like Ladurlad himself.

“Dear old Skipjack!  Skipped here again!” and they were all about him.  “Have you had any dinner?”

“A mouthful at the station.  If there is any coffee and a bit of something cold, I’d rather eat it promiscuously here.  No dining-room spread, pray.  It is too jolly here,” said Jock, dropping into an armchair.  “Where’s Bob?”

“Dining at the school-house.”

“And what’s that Mariolatry?”

“Mariately,” said Babie.  “An Indian goddess.  It is the ’Curse of Kehama,’ and wonderfully noble.”

“Moore or Browning?”

“For shame, Jock!” cried the girl.  “I thought you did know more than examination cram.”

“It is the advantage of having no Mudie boxes,” said his mother.  “We are taking up our Southey.”

“And, Armie, how are you?”

“My cough is better, thank you,” was the languid answer.  “Only they won’t let me go beyond the terrace.”

“For don’t I know,” said his mother, “that if once I let you out, I should find you croaking at a choir practice at Woodside?”

Then, after ordering a refection for the traveller, came the question what he had been doing.

“Dining with Mr. Ogilvie.  It is quite a new sensation to find oneself on a level with the Ogre of one’s youth, and prove him a human mortal after all.”

“That’s a sentiment worthy of Joe,” said Babie.  “You used to know him in private life.”

“Always with a smack of the dominie.  Moreover, he is so young.  I thought him as ancient as Dr. Lucas, and, behold, he is a brisk youth, without a grey hair.”