"This unlicked cub was to come and be a sort of general factotum to him, and do his best to help him with his work, and so on. Marvyn (the tutor) and I sat trying to think of likely men, and finally we made a list of about six, whom Sir John said he would run his eye over next day. After that I went off to bed. I remember wishing to myself that I had taken a better degree and been a more prominent member of the College: then I might have had a shot for this berth, instead of going into a solicitor's office. But as things were, I hadn't the cheek. Well, do you know, Jug--Sir John came round to me next morning----" "Before breakfast, I doubt." "Yes, as a matter of fact I had just come in from a run and was sitting down to it. He asked if he might have some: and after that he offered me--_ME!_--this grand billet. Of course I jumped at it--who wouldn't, to be with a man like that?--and I have been with him ever since." "Well," said Mrs Carfrae, "you should know more of the creature than most folk. What is your unbiassed opinion of him?" "I think he is the greatest man that ever lived," said the boy simply. "Hmph! As a matter of fact, he has less sense than anybody I ever knew," replied the old lady calmly. "Still, you are entitled to your opinion. I need not trouble you with an account of _my_ first meeting with him: it occurred a long time ago. But--wheel me a little nearer the sun, laddie: this corner is a thing too shady--it may interest you to know that he would have been my son-in-law to-day, had it not been--" she paused for a moment, very slightly--"for the uncertainty of human life. And that is why I take something more than a passing interest in the doings of that slim-bodied, brown-eyed, tow-headed hempie that he married on. And that brings me to the point. Laddie, those two are getting over-far apart, and it must be _stopped_!" "Yes, but how?" inquired Carthew dismally. "I understand that entering a lions' den just before dinner-time is wisdom itself compared with interfering between husband and wife." A quiver passed through Elspeth Carfrae's frail body, and she straightened herself in her chair. "I am a havering and doited old woman," she announced with great decision, "and no one takes any notice of what I say or do. But I tell you this. So long as my old heart beats and my old blood runs, I shall be perfectly willing to face every single lion in the Zoo, gin it will bring a moment's happiness to Johnny Carr. The lad deserves a good wife. Once he nearly got one--the best and fairest in all the world--but God decided otherwise. Now he has got another: I know her: she has the right stuff in her. And when I leave this hotel next week I am going to take her with me, in her right mind, and deliver her to her man!" The old lady concluded her intimation with tremendous vigour. Carthew sat regarding her with a mixture of reverence and apprehension. "You are going to--to speak to her about it?" he asked.