To hear being to obey, Mr. Gillespie retired towards the post-office portion of the room where, with a semicircle of tiny bare-legged lassies and laddies before him, he sate beside Paul Macleod and began his task. It was rather a Herculean one, owing to the fact that his pupils having no English, as the phrase runs, the simple stanzas were to them mere gibberish. "It is three months they will be learnin' it, whatever," said Mr. McColl, cheerfully, when the last of the semicircle had failed hopelessly. "It is impossible, quite impossible," retorted Mr. Gillespie, in a white heat of anxiety. "Some of them must have picked up something in that case----" "'Deed, no, sir. Naethin's impossible with bairnies. And wee Paulie there has it fine, for he is at me to learn it on him many a time, because Miss Marjory was saying he would be a fool if he didn't. Speak up, Paulie," he added, in the Gaelic, "you have it fine." Wee Paulie hung his close-cropped fair head with its odd little fringe left over the forehead, so that nothing was to be seen but a rising flush, and murmured some half-inaudible words, whereat the biggest boy in Marjory's class said triumphantly: "He is saying that he will no be saying it to him, but to her." "Hush! Donald," came the quick, clear, dictatorial young voice; "that is not the way to speak. Stand down two places. Paul, come here." The big Paul, seated on the back bench, looked up and smiled, feeling it would be rather pleasant than otherwise to obey; and little Paul pattered shamefacedly across to the girl's side, yet with a confident air which raised the sleek head a little, and showed a pair of very long lashes on the flushed cheeks. As he edged close Marjory passed her arm round him, and with the other hand raised his chin square and straight. "Now, Paul, if you please," she said, in the Gaelic; "clasp your hands, and say it right out--to the whole school, remember. You know it quite well, and you should never, never pretend that you don't know when you do. It is mean." Big Paul, thinking that even reproof sounded pleasant in that voice, and, at any rate, must be bearable in that position, smiled again, and continued smiling unavoidably, as little Paul reeled off the whole hymn from beginning to end in confused, unintelligible fluency, broken only by hurried gasps for breath. "A pretty little fellow," said Captain Macleod, in an undertone to his neighbour. "Who is he?" "Old Peggy Duncan's grandson--Jeanie Duncan's child--you must remember her." The words seemed to jar the very foundations of happy, idle, careless content, and Paul, even in his surprise, felt aggrieved. "Of course I remember her; but they told me she was dead. Who did she marry?" The Reverend James Gillespie put on his most professional manner. "I'm afraid it is a very sad story, but no one really knows the facts of the case. She left home, as you may have heard----"