Mr. Traill flashed a glance at Glenormiston. It was a look at once of triumph and of humility over the Herculean deed of these disinherited children. But the Lord Provost was gazing at that crowd of pale bairns, products of the Old Town's ancient slums, and feeling, in his own person, the civic shame of it. And he was thinking, thinking, that he must hasten that other project nearest his heart, of knocking holes in solid rows of foul cliffs, in the Cowgate, on High Street, and around Greyfriars. It was an incredible thing that such a flower of affection should have bloomed so sweetly in such sunless cells. And it was a new gospel, at that time, that a dog or a horse or a bird might have its mission in this world of making people kinder and happier. They were all down on the floor, in the space before the altar, unwashed, uncombed, unconscious of the dirty rags that scarce covered them; quite happy and self-forgetful in the charming friskings and friendly lollings of the well-fed, carefully groomed, beautiful little dog. Ailie, still so excited that she forgot to be shy, put Bobby through his pretty tricks. He rolled over and over, he jumped, he danced to Tammy's whistling of “Bonnie Dundee,” he walked on his hind legs and louped at a bonnet, he begged, he lifted his short shagged paw and shook hands. Then he sniffed at the heap of coins, looked up inquiringly at Mr. Traill, and, concluding that here was some property to be guarded, stood by the “siller” as stanchly as a soldier. It was just pure pleasure to watch him. Very suddenly the Lord Provost changed his mind. A sacred kirk was the very best place of all to settle this little dog's affairs. The offering of these children could not be refused. It should lie there, below the altar, and be consecrated to some other blessed work; and he would do now and here what he had meant to do elsewhere and in a quite different way. He lifted Bobby to the pulpit so that all might see him, and he spoke so that all might understand. “Are ye kennin' what it is to gie the freedom o' the toon to grand folk?” “It's--it's when the bonny Queen comes an' ye gie her the keys to the burgh gates that are no' here ony mair.” Tammy, being in Heriot's, was a laddie of learning. “Weel done, laddie. Lang syne there was a wa' aroond Edinburgh wi' gates in it.” Oh yes, all these bairnies knew that, and the fragment of it that was still to be seen outside and above the Grassmarket, with its sentry tower by the old west port. “Gin a fey king or ither grand veesitor cam', the Laird Provost an' the maigestrates gied 'im the keys so he could gang in an' oot at 'is pleesure. The wa's are a' doon noo, an' the gates no' here ony mair, but we hae the keys, an' we mak' a show o' gien' 'em to veesitors wha are vera grand or wise or gude, or juist usefu' by the ordinar'.” “Maister Gladstane,” said Tammy.