"I should think that she would," said he, with a little hesitation; but at this moment some other claimant came forward, and he turned away to seek young Ogilvie once more. "Ogilvie," said he, "who is that lady in the green satin?" "The Duchess of Wexford." "Has she a Fund?" "A what?" "A Fund--a charitable Fund of some sort." "Oh, let me see. I think she is getting up money for a new training ship--turning the young ragamuffins about the streets into sailors, don't you know." "Do you think Miss White would give a morning performance for that Fund?" "Miss White! Miss White! Miss White!" said Lieutenant Ogilvie. "I think Miss White has got into your head." "But the lady asked me." "Well, I should say it was exactly the thing that Miss White would like to do--get mixed up with a whole string of duchesses and marchionessses--a capital advertisement--and it would be all the more distinguished if it was an amateur performance, and Miss Gertrude White the only professional admitted into the charmed circle." "You are a very shrewd boy, Ogilvie," Macleod observed, "I don't know how you ever got so much wisdom into so small a head." And indeed, as Lieutenant Ogilvie was returning to Aldershot by what he was pleased to call the cold-meat train, he continued to play the part of mentor for a time with great assiduity, until Macleod was fairly confused with the number of persons to whom he was introduced, and the remarks his friend made about them. What struck him most, perhaps, was the recurrence of old Highland or Scotch family names, borne by persons who were thoroughly English in their speech and ways. Fancy a Gordon who said "lock" for "loch;" a Mackenzie who had never seen the Lewis; a Mac Alpine who had never heard the proverb, "The hills, the Mac Alpines, and the devil came into the world at the same time!"