"When you're poor you've got to dream," she said. "Oh, must you go, Mr. Reid? But you'll come back to-morrow, won't you? We would honestly like you to come and stay with us." "Thank you," said Peter Reid, "but I am going back to London in a day or two. I am obliged to you for your hospitality, especially for singing me 'Strathairlie.' I never thought to hear it again. I wonder if I might trouble you to write me out the words." "But take the book," said Jean, running to get it and pressing it into his hands. "Perhaps you'll find other songs in it you used to know and like. Take it to keep." Pamela dropped her embroidery-frame and watched the scene. Mhor and Peter stood looking on. Jock lifted his head from his books to listen. It was no new thing for the boys to see Jean give away her most treasured possessions: she was a born "Madam Liberality." "But," Peter Reid objected, "it is rather a rare book. You value it yourself." "Of course I do," said Jean, "and that is why I am giving it to _you_. I know you will appreciate it." Peter Reid took the book as if it was something fragile and very precious. Pamela was puzzled by the expression on his face. He did not seem so much touched by the gift as amused--sardonically amused. "Thank you," he said. And again, "Thank you!" "Jock will go down with you to the hotel," Jean said, explaining, when the visitor demurred, that the road was steep and not very well lighted. "I'll go too," said Mhor, "me and Peter." "Well, come straight back. Good-bye, Mr. Reid. I'm so glad you came to see The Rigs, but I wish you could have stayed...." "Is he an old friend?" Pamela asked, when the cavalcade had departed. "I never saw him before to-day. He once lived in this house and he came back to see it, and he looks ill and I think he is poor, so I asked him to come and stay with us for a week." "My dear child, do you invite every stranger to stay with you if you think he is poor?" "Of course not. But he looked so lonely and lost somehow, and he doesn't seem to have anyone belonging to him, and I was sorry for him." "And so you gave him that song-book you value so much?" "Yes," said Jean, looking rather ashamed. "But," she brightened, "he seemed pleased, don't you think? It's a pretty song, 'Strathairlie,' but it's not a _pukka_ old one--it's early Victorian." "Miss Jean, it's a marvel to me that you have anything left belonging to you." "Don't call me Miss Jean!" "Jean, then; but you must call me Pamela." "Oh, but wouldn't that be rather familiar? You see, you are so--so--" "Stricken in years," Pamela supplied. "No--but--well, you are rather impressive, you know. It would be like calling Miss Bathgate 'Bella' to her face. However--Pamela--" CHAPTER VI "For 'tis a chronicle of day by day." _The Tempest_.