Mrs. MacClaverhouse would have been pleased to listen all day to the voice of that charmer of six feet two, but her sharp matronly eye perceived presently that the stalwart Plunger looked pale and worn, and was by no means unqualified for the sick-list; so she sent Lady Cecil to the drawing-room to see to the arrangements of the Venetians, and then she led her boy to the sofa, which was not nearly long enough for him, and had to be eked out with chairs. The Captain remonstrated energetically against this Sybarite treatment, but his aunt was inflexible; and as he was very familiar with the strength of her will, he laid himself down at last as meekly as a child. "And you can read to us, Cecil," said Mrs. MacClaverhouse producing her knitting-needles, and an uncompromising grey-worsted sock, such as Robert Burns may have worn when his plough turned up the immortal daisy. The dowager knitted these worsted instruments of torture for a Dorcas society, which she honoured with her patronage and a very small annual subscription. "Come, Cecil," she said presently, when her niece came softly into the room after a mysterious visit to the cook. "Hector has been amusing us all the morning, and the least we can do is to amuse him this afternoon. Suppose you read him to sleep." If the Scottish warrior had been any thing like the image she had made of him in her mind, Cecil Chudleigh would have been very much disposed to rebel against this command. But there are some people born to walk upon roses and to inhale the perfumed breath of incense; and Hector Gordon was one of them. His nurses had idolised him, his father had worshipped him, his uncle and aunt had spoiled him, his brother officers of the Plungers loved him, and dressed after him, and talked after him, and thought after him; and with that feminine admiration, that subtle and delicious flattery which is the most intoxicating of all earthly incense, Hector had been almost surfeited. He was very delightful. The freshness and brightness of an unsullied youth pervaded every tone of his voice, every thought in his mind, every ringing note of his genial laugh--so hearty without loudness, so exuberant without vulgarity. Perhaps his greatest charm lay in the fact that he was young, and did not consider his youth a thing to be ashamed of. And there are so few young men nowadays. Much has been said about the irresistible witchery of a polished Irishman, the delightful vivacity of a well-born Frenchman. But has any one ever sung the graces of a high-bred Scotchman? What words can fairly describe the nameless fascination which has a dash of the Irishman's insidious flattery, a spice of the Frenchman's brilliant vivacity, but which has a tender softness possessed by neither, a patrician grace not to be equalled by any other nationality in the world? In all the history of modern Europe, the two people who, by manner alone, have exercised the most