"Listen to him!" exclaimed Mrs. Burtenshaw, drawing herself up with an affectation of injured dignity. "If any man wanted to marry me it could only be for my money, you see. As I was saying, John quite expects to be presented with a step-mother, and resents it, like all young things. Joe there wouldn’t speak to me for a week when I married poor Burtenshaw. It’s a nice kind of jealousy, don’t you think so, Mrs. Gillespie?" "Just like a dog’s," said Mrs. Gillespie, in a tone that made every one laugh. "When we first came out we had a collie that couldn’t see my husband put his arm round me without whining to be petted." "John will be flabbergasted when he sees us," said the older of the two young men, referred to by his mother as Joe. "Yes, wasn’t it funny that he should come across them in the wilds of Africa, and rescue Poll from a game-pit without either of them knowing they were cousins?" said Helen, his sister. "It’s quite a romance." "Doesn’t he know the relationship now?" asked Mrs. Gillespie. "No," said Mr. Halliday, with a chuckle. "I asked him in one of my letters whether he had seen anything of the Brownes. You see, they talked of settling here, before they came into this fortune." "That’s all over now, of course," said Mr. Gillespie. "I’m not so sure," said Joe Browne. "The people at home were very nice, and all that, but they’re too stiff and starched after what we’ve been used to; wear high collars and kid gloves. I don’t fancy Poll and I could settle down to that sort of thing." "And I don’t want you to," said Mrs. Burtenshaw. "I don’t believe in healthy young men loafing about, and I tell my boys they’ll have to work for their living just as if I were a poor woman." "Capital!" said Mr. Gillespie. "And when they see what John has been doing I warrant they’ll settle down as neighbours. There’ll be quite a little colony of Scotsmen about Alloway soon, for I’ve no doubt you’ve Scotch blood in you, Miss Ferrier?" "Diluted, Mr. Gillespie," said the girl in black. "My grandfather was a Scotsman, but he married a Frenchwoman--Canadian French, of course. Do you really think my brother will settle here?" "Well, I can’t exactly say," was Mr. Gillespie’s cautious reply. "It seems very probable from what John says in his letters. Don’t you like the prospect?" "Oh, I shall live with Charley, of course; and if it’s really as nice as he says--there isn’t any real danger, is there?" "A lion among the ladies!" cried Mr. Halliday, and they all laughed, Said Mohammed’s quotation being common property among them. "I think you’ll find it all right, my dear," he added in his fatherly way. "I dare say John and your brother between them have exterminated the lions in our neighbourhood by this time." "I think Hilda was very plucky to come all this way alone," said Helen. "_I_ shouldn’t have had the courage."