“Why should I contribute to your school library?” demanded Mr. Campbell.

This was a poser for us.  Why should he, indeed?  But the Story Girl was quite equal to it.  Leaning forward, and throwing an indescribable witchery into tone and eyes and smile, she said,

“Because a lady asks you.”

Mr. Campbell chuckled.

“The best of all reasons,” he said.  “But see here, my dear young lady, I’m an old miser and curmudgeon, as you may have heard.  I hate to part with my money, even for a good reason.  And I never part with any of it, unless I am to receive some benefit from the expenditure.  Now, what earthly good could I get from your three by six school library?  None whatever.  But I shall make you a fair offer.  I have heard from my housekeeper’s urchin of a son that you are a ‘master hand’ to tell stories.  Tell me one, here and now.  I shall pay you in proportion to the entertainment you afford me.  Come now, and do your prettiest.”

There was a fine mockery in his tone that put the Story Girl on her mettle instantly.  She sprang to her feet, an amazing change coming over her.  Her eyes flashed and burned; crimson spots glowed in her cheeks.

“I shall tell you the story of the Sherman girls, and how Betty Sherman won a husband,” she said.

We gasped.  Was the Story Girl crazy?  Or had she forgotten that Betty Sherman was Mr. Campbell’s own great-grandmother, and that her method of winning a husband was not exactly in accordance with maidenly traditions.

But Mr. Campbell chuckled again.

“An excellent test,” he said.  “If you can amuse me with that story you must be a wonder.  I’ve heard it so often that it has no more interest for me than the alphabet.”

“One cold winter day, eighty years ago,” began the Story Girl without further parley, “Donald Fraser was sitting by the window of his new house, playing his fiddle for company, and looking out over the white, frozen bay before his door.  It was bitter, bitter cold, and a storm was brewing.  But, storm, or no storm, Donald meant to go over the bay that evening to see Nancy Sherman.  He was thinking of her as he played ‘Annie Laurie,’ for Nancy was more beautiful than the lady of the song.  ’Her face, it is the fairest that e’er the sun shone on,’ hummed Donald—­and oh, he thought so, too!  He did not know whether Nancy cared for him or not.  He had many rivals.  But he knew that if she would not come to be the mistress of his new house no one else ever should.  So he sat there that afternoon and dreamed of her, as he played sweet old songs and rollicking jigs on his fiddle.

“While he was playing a sleigh drove up to the door, and Neil Campbell came in.  Donald was not overly glad to see him, for he suspected where he was going.  Neil Campbell, who was Highland Scotch and lived down at Berwick, was courting Nancy Sherman, too; and, what was far worse, Nancy’s father favoured him, because he was a richer man than Donald Fraser.  But Donald was not going to show all he thought—­Scotch people never do—­and he pretended to be very glad to see Neil and made him heartily welcome.