But still Mrs Lithgow could not bear Nelly’s slow matter-of-fact perusal, and comment on her new treasures. She put them up one by one, restored them to the box, and carried it away to her own room in her own arms, to be privately wept and rejoiced over there. “Randall never sent home anything like yon,” said July softly to herself, as they returned to Burnside, “and Randall was clever before Johnnie Lithgow. I wonder he never had the thought.” “Randall knows better,” said Menie. “When Randall sends things, he sends becoming things; it’s only you, July, that have not the thought: if Johnnie Lithgow had been wise, he would not have sent such presents to Kirklands.” But just then a line of a certain favourite song crossed Menie’s mind against her will--“Wisdom’s sae cauld;” and July looked down upon her own printed frock, and thought a silken gown, like Johnnie Lithgow’s present, might be a very becoming thing. At seventeen--even at twenty--one appreciates a piece of kindly folly fully better than an act of wisdom. CHAPTER VIII. But Menie Laurie was by no means satisfied that even simple little July should make comparison so frequent between Randall, her own hero, and the altogether new and sudden elevation of Johnnie Lithgow. Johnnie Lithgow might be very clever, might be a newspaper conductor, and a rising man; but Randall--Randall, in spite of the little chillness of that assumed superiority which could think humiliation necessary to bring his youthful countryman down--in spite of Menie’s consciousness that there lacked something of the frank and generous tone with which one high spirit should acknowledge the excellence of another--Randall was still the ideal genius, the something so far above “clever,” that Menie felt him insulted by praise so mean as this word implied. There was little time for speculation on the subject, yet many a mood of Menie’s was tinged by its passing gleam, for Menie sometimes thought her betrothed unappreciated, and was lofty and scornful, and disposed in his behalf to defy all the world. Sometimes impatient of the estimation, which, great though it was, was not great enough, Menie felt not without a consoling self-satisfaction that she alone did Randall perfect justice. Johnnie Lithgow!--what though he did write articles! Menie was very glad to believe, condescendingly, that he might be clever, but he never could be Randall Home.