Mrs. Mowbray and her son had reappeared for a short time on several occasions during these silent years. They had come at the height of the season for “the gowff,” which Frank, not having been a St. Rule’s boy, nor properly brought up to it, played badly like an Englishman. It must be understood that this was generations before golf had penetrated into England, and when it was, in fact, thought of contemptuously by most of the chance visitors, who considered it a game for old gentlemen, and compared it scornfully with cricket, and called the clubs “sticks,” to the hot indignation of the natives. Since then “the gowff” has had its revenges, and it is now the natives who are scornful, and smile grimly over the crowds of the strangers who are so eager, but never can get over the disabilities of a childhood not dedicated to golf. Not only Rodie, and Alick, and Ralph, but even Johnny Wemyss, who, though he rarely played, had yet a natural understanding of the game, laughed at the attempts of Frank, and at his dandyism, and his “high English,” and many other signs of the alien, who gave himself airs, or was supposed to do so. But, at the period of which I am now speaking, Frank had become a man, and had learned several lessons in life. He was, indeed, older than even Johnny Wemyss; he was nearly twenty-five, and had been at an English University, and had had a large pair of whiskers, and was no longer a dandy. The boys recognised him as a fellow-man, even as a man in an advanced stage, who knew some things they did not, but no longer gave himself airs. He had even learned that difficult lesson, which many persons went through life without ever learning, that he could not play golf. And when he settled himself with his mother in the old house which belonged to him, in the beginning of summer, and addressed himself seriously to the task of making up his deficiencies, his youthful acquaintances rallied round him, and forgot their criticisms upon his neckties, and his spats, and all the ornamental particulars of “the fashion,” which he brought with him; nay, they began secretly to make notes of these points, and shyly copied them, one after another, with a great terror of being laughed at, which would have been completely justified by results, but for the fact that they were all moved by the same temptation. When, however, Rodie Buchanan and Alick Seaton, both stepping out, with much diffidence, on a fresh Sunday morning, in their first spats, red with apprehension, and looking about them suspiciously, with a mingled dread of and desire to be remarked, suddenly ran upon each other, they both paused, looked at each other’s feet, and, with unspeakable relief, burst into a roar of laughter, which could be heard both east and west to the very ends of the town; not very proper, many people thought, on the Sunday morning, especially in the case of a minister’s son. They were much relieved, however, to find themselves