"I--I'm sure they didn't mean to be rude, Mr. McDuff," ventured the frightened teacher. "My name'll be Peter McDuff," he insisted, coming further into the room while she stepped back in terror. "I'll be sixty years of old, and I'll neffer be casting a tory vote! An' if you'll be gifing me a man my own beeg and my own heavy--" he brandished his fists fiercely. "Peter!" The McDuff turned. Behind him stood Angus McRae, his gentle face distressed. He laid his hand on Peter's shoulder with an air of quiet power. "Come away home with me, Peter man," he said soothingly. "We'll be finding the pig on the road." Peter stumbled out grumbling, and Angus McRae, pausing a moment to deliver an apology to Helen, followed. Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came along the hall rocking with laughter. "You poor child!" she cried. "I heard him, and was coming to the rescue when I saw old Angus. I knew you'd be scared. But Peter wouldn't hurt a hair of a woman's head." "That Mr. McRae seemed to have some strange power over him," whispered Helen, watching, with some apprehension, the two climb into an old wagon. "So he has. And he's the only one that has. He keeps Peter in order when he's drunk and keeps him sober, when he can. Ah, dear me! dear me! There's a clever man all gone wrong. Angus McRae's been working with him for years. He lives out there past what they call Willow Lane. Ever been down there?" "No, but I've heard of it often." "It's that bit of street that runs from the end of the town where that old hotel is. I'm going down there after school to see about Minnie Perkins. Come along for a walk. Now, you children, go right back there, do you hear me?" For the primary grade had overflowed and was flooding the halls. And Madame swept them back and slammed her door. When school was dismissed and the last noisy youngster had gone storming forth Helen went down the hall to her friend's room. Madame came swaying out carrying a bunch of gay spiked gladiolus, her draperies floating about her with cherubs peeping from their folds, like a saint in an old picture. She dismissed her satellites firmly at the first corner, except those who lived beyond or on Willow Lane, a ceremony that necessitated a great deal of shooing and scolding. The first eye-sore on Willow Lane was the old hotel, still standing there, forlorn and ugly, as though ashamed of all the evil it had wrought. As the years passed there was always a new generation of loungers to sit and smoke and spit on its sagging veranda. From it ran the old high board fence plastered with ugly advertisements of soap or circus or patent medicine. It disfigured the whole street and shut off a possible glimpse of the lake. Away on the other side of it was a meadow where in spring-time the larks soared and sang, and beyond it the lake and the woods where the mocking bird and the bee made music. But here in Willow Lane was neither sound nor sight that was pleasant.