Ye will remember him best o' ony o' them, I reckon; for even when ye were baith bits o' callants, there was a sort o' rivalship between ye for the affections o' bonny Katie Alison, the loveliest lassie that ever I had at my school. I hae frequently observed the looks o' jealousy that used to pass between ye when she seemed to show mair kindness to ane than anither; and, when ye little thocht I saw ye, I hae noticed ane o' ye pushing oranges into her hand, and anither sweeties. When she got a bit comb, too, to fasten up her gowden hair, I weel divined whose pennies had purchased it--for they were yours, doctor. I remember, also, hoo ye was aye a greater favourite wi' her than Jamie, and hoo he challenged ye to fecht him for her affections, and o'ercam' ye in the battle, and sent ye to the school next day wi' yer face a' disfigured--and I, as in duty bound, gied each o' ye a heartier thrashin than ye had gien ane anither. Katie hung her head a' the time, and when she looked up, a tear was rowin in her bonny blue een. But ye left the school and the country-side when ye was little mair than seventeen; and the next thing that we heard o' ye was that ye had gane oot to India about three years afterwards. Yer departure evidently removed a load from Jamie's breast. He followed Katie like her shadow, though with but little success, as far as I could perceive, and as it was generally given out. But, ye must remember, in his case the name o' Venturesome Jamie was well applied. Never in my born days did I know such a callant. He would have climbed the highest trees as though he had been speeling owre a common yett, and swung himsel by the heels frae their topmost branches. Oh, he was a terrible laddie! When I hae seen ye a' bathing in the river, sometimes I used to tremble for him. He was a perfect amphibious animal. I have seen him dive from a height of twenty or thirty feet, and remain under the water till I almost lost my breath wi' anxiety for his uprising; and then he would have risen at as many yards distant from the place where he had dived. I recollect o' hearing o' his permitting himsel to be suspended owre a precipice aboon a hundred feet high, wi' a rope fastened round his oxters, and three laddies like himsel hauding on by the ither end o't--and this was dune merely to harry the nest o' a waterwagtail. Had the screams o' the callants, who found him owre heavy for them, and that they were unable to draw him up again, not brought some ploughmen to their assistance, he must have been precipitated into eternity. However, as I intended to say, it was shortly after the news arrived o' your having sailed for India, that a fire broke out in the dead o' nicht in a house occupied by Katie Alison's father. Never shall I forget the uproar and consternation o' that terrible nicht. There was not a countenance in the town but was pale wi' terror. The flames roared and raged from every window, and were visible through some parts in the roof.