“Thank you, Master.  That’s better.  I won’t be fancying now that Margaret Gordon’s here listening to what I’m saying.  I had the feeling so strong a moment ago.

“I suppose you think I’m a long while getting to Kilmeny, but I’m coming to that.  I didn’t mean to talk so much about Margaret, but somehow my thoughts got taken up with her.

“Well, Margaret passed the Board and went to Queen’s Academy and got a teacher’s license.  She passed pretty well up when she came out, but Janet told me she cried all night after the pass list came out because there were some ahead of her.

“She went to teach school over at Radnor.  It was there she met a man named Ronald Fraser.  Margaret had never had a beau before.  She could have had any young man in Lindsay if she had wanted him, but she wouldn’t look at one of them.  They said it was because she thought nobody was good enough for her, but that wasn’t the way of it at all, Master.  I knew, because Margaret and I used to talk of those matters, as girls do.  She didn’t believe in going with anybody unless it was somebody she thought everything of.  And there was nobody in Lindsay she cared that much for.

“This Ronald Fraser was a stranger from Nova Scotia and nobody knew much about him.  He was a widower, although he was only a young man.  He had set up store-keeping in Radnor and was doing well.  He was real handsome and had taking ways women like.  It was said that all the Radnor girls were in love with him, but I don’t think his worst enemy could have said he flirted with them.  He never took any notice of them; but the very first time he saw Margaret Gordon he fell in love with her and she with him.

“They came over to church in Lindsay together the next Sunday and everybody said it would be a match.  Margaret looked lovely that day, so gentle and womanly.  She had been used to hold her head pretty high, but that day she held it drooping a little and her black eyes cast down.  Ronald Fraser was very tall and fair, with blue eyes.  They made as handsome a couple as I ever saw.

“But old James Gordon and Thomas and Janet didn’t much approve of him.  I saw that plain enough one time I was there and he brought Margaret home from Radnor Friday night.  I guess they wouldn’t have liked anybody, though, who come after Margaret.  They thought nobody was good enough for her.

“But Margaret coaxed them all round in time.  She could do pretty near anything with them, they were so fond and proud of her.  Her father held out the longest, but finally he give in and consented for her to marry Ronald Fraser.