"Now, mother!" It was Jamie's turn to protest. Mrs. Macleod spoke to the little maid, who was beaming on me, in halting French. "Do you speak French?" she asked me. "No, I can read it, that 's all." "Oh, well, with that you can soon understand and speak it; my Scotch tongue is too old to be learning new tricks; fortunately I understand it a little. Marie will take you to your room." Marie looked on me with an encouraging smile, and led the way up stairs through a wide passageway, down three steps into another long corridor, and opened a door at the end. She lighted two candles and, after some pantomime concerning water, left me, closing the door behind her. And this was my room. I looked around; it took immediate possession of me in spirit--a new experience for me and a wholly pleasing one. There were two windows in one end; the walls were sloping. I concluded it must be in the gable end of some addition to the main building. The walls were whitewashed; the floor was neatly laid with a woven rag carpet of peculiar design and delicate coloring; the cottage bedroom set was painted dark green. There was a plain deal writing table with writing pad and inkstand, and a dressing table on which stood two white china candlesticks. Counterpane, chair cushions, and window hangings were of beautiful old chintz still gay with faded paroquets and vines, trees, trellises, roses and numerous humming-birds, on a background of faded crocus yellow. There was a knock at the door. On my using one of the few words in French at my command, "Entrez," Marie burst in with delighted exclamations and a flood of unintelligible French. But I gathered she was explaining to me Pierre who followed her, cap in one hand, and in the other, the handle of my trunk which he was dragging behind him. This was evidently Pierre, father, in distinction from Pierre, son. "Big Pete and little Pete," I translated for their benefit; whereupon Marie clapped her hands and Peter the Great came forward man fashion to shake hands before he placed my trunk. As the two spoke together I heard the name "Cale". "What a household!" I said to myself after they had gone, and while I was doing over my hair. "I wonder if there are any other members? And what is my place in it going to be?" It kept me guessing until I had made myself ready for supper. Soon there was another knock. Marie's voice was heard; her tongue loosed in voluble expression of her evident desire to conduct me down stairs to the dining-room. "Here are more of us!" was Jamie Macleod's exclamation, as I entered the long low room. Four fine dogs--he told me afterwards they were Gordon setters--rose slowly from the rug before the fireplace. "But they 're Scotch and need no introduction. Come here, comrades!" The four leaped towards me; snuffed at me with evident curiosity; licked my hands and were about to spring on me, but a word from their master sent them back to the rug.