The distinguished architect loved Willie Cameron for his good-humour, his industry, his quickness, and his impromptu jingling rhymes. He made everything rhyme with a delicious comic absurdity, even the technical terms of his profession, and in consequence no one was jealous of the master's preference for his funny Scottish pupil. You see, he was so much more of an Irish than a Scottish lad. Born on Irish soil, he seems to have inherited the best of native virtues, and was universally beloved. Even his eldest sister, who never sinned on the side of tenderness, could not speak of uncle Willie without a smile. So there were universal congratulations when Willie, barely of age, got his first commission. No one accused the architect of favouritism, though the first commission of a son could not have been of greater moment to him. Uncle Willie posted triumphantly off to the country, and the master told him to telegraph for his presence in the event of doubt or difficulty. The season was wet, and uncle Willie reached his inn that night drenched and shivering. They put him into damp sheets. The next day was no drier, and uncle Willie drove off on a car in the rain. It was his last drive alive. Ten days later what remained of him was driven to the cemetery amid plumes and crape and white flowers. It was curious that while grandpapa Cameron was always ready to speak of his handsome son Douglas, of Willie, whom he loved best, he only spoke to me once,--that was when he showed me an indefinite boy's picture, and curtly told me it was my uncle Willie's portrait, and added, dreamily, that I was the only one of his grandchildren who resembled Willie. That fact, perhaps, had more to do than my musical proclivities with his preference for me. He would give me five-shilling pieces from time to time, and beg me "not to mention it." I took the pieces gratefully, pleased with their brightness and largeness; but I own I found pennies more useful. A child can buy almost anything for a penny, but the only use of a silver five-shilling piece seemed to me to be able to look at it from time to time. Had I known anything of arithmetic, I might have calculated how many pennies were contained in these big silver pieces, and have changed them for an inexhaustible store of my favourite coin. But I was not clever enough to think of this, and by the time I was sent across the sea to school in Warwickshire a year later, I had as many as six five-shilling pieces in a box, which then did stout service in supplying cakes and sweets on the scarce occasions I was allowed to make such needful investments. Grandpapa Cameron lived in a little cottage out of town, with a long back-garden, where he spent his time cultivating roses. He had a disagreeable old cook and a red-nosed gardener, and he saw no society but a couple of priests, who took it in turn to drop in of an evening to play cribbage.