"Oh, all right, but I don't think it's very polite to go to bed when a visitor's in. It might make him think he ought to go away." Lord Bidborough laughed, and assured Mhor that he appreciated his delicacy of feeling. "There's a thing I want to ask you, anyway," said Mhor.--"Yes, I'm going to bed, Jean. Whether do you think Quentin Durward or Charlie Chaplin would be the better man in a fight?" Lord Bidborough gave the matter some earnest thought, and decided on Quentin Durward. "I told you that," said. Jock to Mhor. "Now, perhaps, you'll believe me." "I don't know," said Mhor, still doubtful. "Of course Quentin Durward had his sword--but you know that way Charlie has with a stick?" "Well, anyway, go to bed," said Jean, "and stop talking about that horrible little man. He oughtn't to be mentioned in the same breath as Quentin Durward." Mhor went out of the room still arguing. The next day David came home. The whole family, including Peter, were waiting on the platform to welcome him, but Mhor was too interested in the engine and Jock too afraid of showing sentiment to pay much attention to him, and it was left to Jean and Peter to express joy at his return. At first it seemed to Jean that it was a different David who had come back. There was an indefinable change even in his appearance. True, he wore the same Priorsford clothes that he had gone away in, but he carried himself better, with more assurance. His round, boyish face had taken on a slightly graver and more responsible look, and his accent certainly had an Oxford touch. Enough, anyhow, to send Jock and Mhor out of the room to giggle convulsively in the lobby. To Jean's relief David noticed nothing; he was too busy telling Jean his news to trouble about the eccentric behaviour of the two boys. David would hardly have been human if he had not boasted a little that first night. He had often pictured to himself just how it would be. Jean would sit by the fire and listen, and he would sit on the old comfortable sofa and recount all the doings of his first term, tell of his friends, his tutors, his rooms, the games, the fun--all the details of the wonderful new life. And it had happened just as he had pictured it--lucky David! The room had looked as he had known it would look, with a fire that sparkled as only Jean's fire ever sparkled, and Jean's eyes--Jean's "doggy" eyes, as Mhor called them--were lit with interest; and Jock and Mhor and Peter crept in after a little and lay on the rug and gazed up at him, a quiet and most satisfactory audience.