"No, of course not," shouted Hugh John, "it was the Scotch drover, Campbell,--for how else could he know so well about it? Of course it was--_I_ knew it from the first." Meantime Sweetheart had been musing deeply. "Do you know," she said gently, "I am most of all sorry for Die Vernon. I don't think that I want to play in this story. It is too real. I think Die Vernon lived." "Why--didn't they all live?" said Maid Margaret, plaintively. For the world of books was still quite alive for her. She had not lost the most precious of all the senses. Dream-gold was as good as Queen's-head-gold fresh out of the mint for her. Happy Maid Margaret! "I am sure Die Vernon was real," Sweetheart went on; "last night when you were all out cycle-riding and I was waiting for my Latin lesson, I read a bit of the book--a chapter that father has not told us. And it made me sorry for Die. She wished that she had been born a man, so that she might say and do the same things as others. She was alone in the world, she said. She needed protection, yet if she said or did anything naturally, every one thought what a bold, forward girl she was! I have felt that too!" "Rubbish!" said Hugh John, in high remorseless scorn, "_you_ are not 'alone in the world!' No, not much. And if we say or do anything to you, you jolly well whack us over the head. Why, the last time I called you--" "That will do, Hugh John," interrupted Sweetheart, in very Die Vernonish voice. "Well, when I called you--'Thinggummy'--_you know_--you hit me with a stick and the mark lasted three days!" "And served you right!" said Sweetheart, calmly. "Well, I'm not saying it didn't, am I?" retorted honest Hugh John, "but anyway _you_ needn't go about doing _wooly-woo_-- "'My nest it is harried, My children all gone!'" "Oh, you are a boy and can't understand--or won't!" said Sweetheart, with a sigh, "I needn't have expected it. But Diana Vernon did make me cry, especially the bit about her being a Catholic--stop--I will find it!" And she foraged among the books on the shelf for the big Abbotsford edition of _Rob Roy_, the one with the fine old-fashioned pictures. "Here it is," she said with her finger on the place.