"Happy!" exclaimed Frank. "I'm stupefied with happiness!" As Heriot Walkingshaw strode between the spring breeze and the murmuring pines, his son's arm through his, listening to his gratitude and Ellen's praises, he too felt happier than ever before in his life. What a lot of pleasure he had learned how to give. And the way to give it was so simple once you found it out. Apparently you had merely to get in sympathy with people, and then do the things which naturally, under those circumstances, you would both like to be done. There was really nothing in it at all; still, it was jolly well worth doing. Only as they neared the inn did a qualm begin to trouble Frank. "It's deuced rough luck on Andrew, losing that girl," he said suddenly. "Hang it, it would kill _me_!" "It's only losing his money that'll ever hurt Andrew," replied his father cheerfully. "Don't you worry about what he'll say." Unfortunately, Mr. Walkingshaw forgot that the provision for this happy marriage was, in fact, coming indirectly from Andrew's pocket. Even the youngest of us cannot foresee everything, or Heriot would not have been humming "Gin a laddie kiss a lassie," quite so lightheartedly. "I must say I funk having it out with him," remarked Frank. "Just you leave it all to me. I'm a match for Andrew any day." It would have been well if Mr. Walkingshaw had "touched wood" as he made this vaunt; but at that moment his confidence was so serene that he felt master of any emergency conceivable by man. "Andrew's not the mate for Ellen," he said presently. "The young are for each other, Frank; that's the law of nature." He smiled to himself. "I learnt that this afternoon. By Jove, what a pretty girl Ellen is!" And then again his young heart remembered the sympathetic widow, and he stopped smiling. CHAPTER III