"But you wouldn't want me to stay and bother Aunt Kirsty in the kitchen all my life, now, would you, Mammy Viney? I thought men were a nuisance there." "Men's jus' a trouble eberywhar," she said sternly. "Dat Mahogany Bill he was jus' like all de res', an' here you doin' de same, goin' off an' leabin' folks in de lurch, with all de hard work to do. I'se shame of you--dat I is!" Roderick laughed good-naturedly, as he followed her into the house, but Mammy Viney tossed her head. "Eberybody say dat it pretty mean o' you, anyhow," she said with the air of one who could tell a great deal if she wished. "'Deed dey's sayin' dat you no business make Lawya Ed stay home!" Roderick did not wait to hear any more of what Algonquin was saying about him. Mammy Viney rather enjoyed recounting such remarks, and never took one jot or one tittle from that which she passed along. Doctor Leslie met him at the study door, with outstretched hands. "Now tell me all about this going away scheme," he said; and Roderick told him eagerly, about the brilliant prospects ahead of him, and when he finished there was the implied question in the boy's eyes. Would he not be blind to his and every one's best interests to remain in Algonquin in the face of such inducements? Doctor Leslie sat and looked out at the orchard trees, with their wealth of red and gold apples falling with soft thuds upon the grass. How often had that question come to him in his youth, and when he had examined his own heart and his reasons for obeying the call to go away, he had been compelled to remain. He saw Roderick's position, and sympathised with the youthful longing to be away and to do great deeds; but he was afraid the way had not yet truly opened up into which Angus McRae's son could step. He had learned, in the year Roderick had spent in Algonquin, that the young man was not vitally interested in the things that are eternal. His outlook on life was not his father's. The minister felt impelled to speak plainly.