And so he remembered the first night he had looked upon that picture and its strange effect upon him. He remembered some of his own thoughts minutely, his vision of that “ladye of high degree” with whose future his own seemed likely to be joined. How strange it seemed to him now that he could have ever dreamed of such a thing! Her supercilious smile seemed even now to make him shrink. The prospect of her trip to America in the spring or early summer was not the pleasant thing he had then thought it. Indeed, it annoyed him to remember how much would be expected of him as guide and host. It would take his time from things—and people—more correctly speaking, one person who had grown very dear. He might as well confess it to himself now as at any other time. Margaret Manning had become to him the one woman in all the earth whose love he cared to win. And looking on his heart as it now was, and thinking of himself as when he first returned from abroad, he realized that he was not nearly so sure of her saying “Yes” to his request that she would give her life into his keeping, as he had been that the “ladye of high degree” would assent to that request. Why was it? Ah! Of this one he was not worthy, so pure and true and beautiful a woman was she. While the other—was it possible that he had been willing to marry a woman about whom he felt as he did toward this other haughty woman of wealth and position? To what depths had he almost descended! He shuddered involuntarily at the thought. By and by he arose and put out the light preparatory to going upstairs for the night, humming a line of an old song: “The laird may marry his ladye, his ladye of high degree— But I will marry my true love,” and then his face broke into a sweet smile and he added aloud and heartily, “if I can”—and hummed the closing words, “For true of heart am I,” as he went out into the hall, a look of determination growing on his face and the vision of Margaret Manning enshrined in his heart. CHAPTER VII The visit of the “ladye of high degree” to America was delayed by wind and tide and circumstance until the late fall, and in the meantime the people of America had not stood still for her coming. Among other things that had been done, there had been put up and fully equipped a sort of club-house belonging to the Forest Hill Mission. It does not take long to carry out such schemes when there are two earnest persons with determination and ability to work like John Stanley and Margaret Manning. The money for the scheme had come in rapidly and from unexpected sources. Margaret declared that every dollar was an answer to prayer.