Captain Herbert burst into a hearty laugh. "Why, bless my soul, you've had the escape of your life! Eleanor has it in for you, for shifting your responsibility and sending little Bluebell home with your young MacDonald; an uncommonly handsome young beggar he is too, with the airs of a Highland chieftain, quite the kind calculated to be dangerous, Eleanor thinks. I'm afraid she wasn't as cordial to the boy as she might have been, and probably lost me a couple of good MacDonald votes." Monteith looked enlightened. "Why, I must apologise," he said, "but I did not dream I was transgressing. Miss Herbert surely knows that they have been like brother and sister since their baby days?" "Oh, that's just the trouble. Eleanor's scared they're not going to remain like brother and sister. She and your minister's wife down there have got it into their busy heads that the little monkey's inclined to think too much about this old chum of hers. Bluebell's the right sort, I assure you, Archie, never forgets an old friend. Harold's just the same. Every time he writes he sends his love to every old codger that chopped down a tree on this place. It's a fine quality. It's Irish. We get it from my mother's side, though I'm more English than Irish myself, praise the Lord. Well, it seems this loyalty is out of place in this case, and Eleanor thinks the less Belle sees of this young man the better. All perfect bosh and unthinkable nonsense, you know; but you can never account for the mental workings of some people. A woman's mind picks up an idea, particularly if it concerns matrimony in the remotest degree, as a hen does a piece of bread, and runs squawking all round this earthly barnyard advertising the matter until she convinces herself and all the rest of the human fowl that she's got a whole baking in her bill. Eleanor has snatched up some such notion about Isabel and this young MacDonald, and the youngster hardly out of short dresses yet! But there it is. She'll never let go. All rubbish!" He burst into a hearty laugh, and poked the fire until it crackled and roared. "Now, Archie, what sort of figure do you think I shall cut running for Parliament next fall? Think the Oa 'll run me off the face of the earth?" "Just one moment, Captain, before you leave this subject, and we'll talk politics all day afterwards. Far be it from me to even glance into the dark mysteries of matchmaking, but I'd like to know why Miss Herbert should object so strongly to my young friend on so short an acquaintance?" Captain Herbert looked surprised. He drew himself up with a slight access of dignity. "Oh, come now, Monteith!" he exclaimed, "you are surely worldly wise enough to understand that, though this young Scotty may be the most exemplary inhabitant of that excellent section where you teach, he would scarcely be a match for my niece."