sure, as sure as the sublime uncertainty of the game permitted, of “holeing” his ball. Naturally, to have taken out a club on Sunday morning, even to the hole in the garden, would have been as good as devoting one’s self to the infernal gods: but thought is free. Rodie had a conviction that Elsie would come bouncing along, through the lilac bushes, to spoil his calculations, as she usually did; but this did not lessen the frown with which he perceived that his anticipation had come to pass. “What are you wantin’ now?” he said gloomily, marking imaginary distances upon the grass. “Oh, nothing--if you are so deep engaged,” said Elsie, with a spark of natural pride. “I’m no deep engaged!” said Rodie, indignantly; for he knew father would not smile upon his study, neither would it be appreciated by Alick or Ralph (though they were probably engaged in the same way themselves), that he should be studying the strokes which it was their pride to consider as spontaneous or, indeed, almost accidental. He threw down the cane he had in his hand, and turned away towards the summer-house, whither Elsie followed him. “I want awfully to speak to you, Rodie----” “You are always wanting to speak to me,” said the ungrateful boy. “I’m nothing of the kind; and if I were, want would be my master,” cried Elsie, “for there’s never a moment when you’re free of these laddies. You’re just in their arms and round their necks every moment of your life.” “I’m neither in their arms nor round their necks,” cried Rodie furious, being conscious that he was not weaned from a certain “bairnly” habit of wandering about with an arm round his cronies’ shoulders. Elsie, however, not sorry for once in a way to find him at a disadvantage, laughed. “It’s Ralph and Alick, Ralph and Alick, just day and night,” she cried, “or else Johnny Wemyss--but you’re not so keen about Johnny Wemyss because they say he’s not a gentleman; but _I_ think he’s the best gentleman of them all.” “It’s much you ken!” cried Rodie. His laddies had made him much more pronounced in his Fife sing-song of accent, which the minister, being from the West Country (though it is well known in Fife that the accent of the West Country is just insufferable), objected to strongly. “I ken just as well as you--and maybe better,” said Elsie. Then she remembered that this passage of arms, however satisfactory in itself, was not quite in accordance with the object of the interview which she desired. “I am not wanting to quarrel,” she said.