lost—leastways, granny does—an' mother don't know anything about it at all. What fun it is! D'you know, Duncan, I don't so very much like mother."

Duncan looked at her in alarm. Scottish children of all classes are brought up in very strict notions of filial duty and affection, and these were no exceptions to the rule. Duncan looked all round anxiously, as though he feared a bird might carry the dreadful treason to their mother's ears.

Elsie looked as if she were enjoying the sensation she had made. "I've got a good reason," she said, nodding her head knowingly. "You'll see it when you've read the letter. I always thought I wasn't so very fond of her, and now I see why it was. It wouldn't have been right if I had; an' when she beat me, I can't tell you how I felt. I couldn't like any one who beat me!" Elsie continued, grinding her teeth together with rage at the memory, "even if it was my own mother."

"You seemed as if you wanted to make mother do it," said Duncan, who was often much distracted between his allegiance to rebellious Elsie and the strict sense of duty and obedience in which he had always been trained.

"P'raps I did," Elsie replied. "But I don't care; and mother shan't have the chance again. I don't think our father'd let her if he knew it."

"Our father?" faltered Duncan. "Why, our father's dead."

"Is he?" asked Elsie, enigmatically. "Robbie's father is."

"And isn't that ours?" Duncan asked contemptuously.

"That's just it," Elsie replied, with some excitement. "That's just what the letter's about. Now, if you sit down here I'll read it to you."

"We shall be late again," Duncan said, nervously. "Don't let's stop now, Elsie, and make mother cross. Could we do it after school?"

"P'raps I'd better tear it up, or give it back to granny," Elsie said, with a taunting air. "It don't matter to you."

"Oh, don't!" pleaded Duncan, divided again between the sense of duty, his own curiosity, and a fear of offending Elsie. "Do keep it till after school."

"Yes, I will," Elsie replied. "And mind you bring home an atlas with you, for, now I think of it, I must have a map of England and Scotland."

"But we mustn't bring home books," Duncan urged.

"Never mind; you must do it by mistake. We must have a map, I tell you; and if I've had the trouble of getting the letter, you can take the trouble to get the map. Mind you do, now, or else I shan't tell you anything about it. You can take it back in the afternoon. 'Tisn't stealing."

No, nor disobedience, nor deceit, nor telling a lie, eh, Elsie? Evidently Elsie did not stop to think of that any more than she had stopped to consider whether she had any business to read that old letter of her mother's when it fluttered out of the window.

They reached the cottage in good time. Robbie and their grandmother had only just come downstairs. Mrs. MacDougall seemed to be in an unusually pleasant temper this morning. "I'm glad you've hastened, my child," she said to Elsie. "Sit down to the table, and get slicing that cucumber I've just cut. It'll be more refreshing with some bread-and-butter and a cup o' milk than the porridge, and a change too."

Duncan glanced at Elsie with a half shame-faced expression, as much as to say, "Mother is kind, you see, when you're good. She's sorry you had to be beaten last night." But Elsie only replied by a look of defiance, as though to say, "That doesn't make up at all."

"Let's see: what's to-day?" Mrs. MacDougall continued, pleasantly, as she poured out the milk into the children's cups. "Can it be the thirty-first?"

"No, no, Meg; surely not," quavered the old grandmother, who, for reasons of her own, wished to appear ignorant. Was it not to refresh her failing memory about what happened just about this time of year, a long while ago, that she had gone to her daughter's desk, and got out those old faded letters? Mrs. MacDougall would not have minded her reading them, but she would mind having them lost, for she was very methodical; and besides, many of these letters were important ones, written by hands long since folded in death.

"And to-morrow's Robbie's birthday," Mrs. MacDougall continued, laying her rough, strong hand very gently on the child's fair curls. "Very well do I remember this time seven years ago."

"Yes," sighed the old grandmother. "Poor little dears! and Nannie a bonny lass too."

Mrs. MacDougall glanced at her mother with something like a frown. "I never think of Robbie's birthday without thinking about poor Aunt Nannie," she said to the children.

They knew well enough why, for they had heard the tale often enough. Their Aunt Nannie had been their mother's beautiful young sister, and the news of her death had come to them when Robbie was a baby of a week old. They had never even seen her, for Duncan was but a year old, and Elsie not three, when she died, and she had been living in England with her English husband at the time.

"Robbie reminds me so of her," Mrs. MacDougall said softly. "She was fair. He takes after her wonderfully, doesn't he, mother?"

"Very much indeed," the old dame replied.

"Ah well! Robbie must have some fresh cakes to-morrow for his birthday and a plate of plums, and you can have your tea under the big alder an' Elsie shall pour it out."

"Oh, thank you, mother, how nice!" the little boys exclaimed. Elsie's ungracious silence passed unnoticed by all but Duncan.

"P'raps I shan't be here to pour it out," she said, in a careless tone, when they were outside the door. "Mind you don't forget the atlas, Duncan."

Then they started off to school. It was a longish walk across the moor and along a dusty road to the nearest village. Robbie, although seven years old, was exempted from going on account of the distance and his delicacy. Elsie bore in mind that Duncan had gone before he was that age, but Robbie was such a petted baby. He was not nearly so strong as Duncan had been at his age.

Duncan's was a very placid, slow sort of mind. He went through his tasks without any excitement or distraction, although occasionally a vague curiosity as to what Elsie could want the atlas for, and what the letter said about them, did wander through his brain. When school was ended he slipped out unobserved with a small atlas, which he had had difficulty to secure, under his jacket.

Elsie was waiting for him at the edge of the moor. They sat down on some stones, and Elsie pulled the letter from inside the neck of her dress.

"I shan't say anything; I shall read it to you," she began; "and if you can't make anything of it I s'pose I must explain it afterwards. It's from our father to Mrs. MacDougall."

"What, to mother?" Duncan asked.

"H'm, you'll see presently," Elsie said impatiently. "Worst of it is, there's a piece torn off all along, which makes it difficult to read. It begins, 'Dear Mrs. MacDougall.' Oh, I forgot. It's put at the top, 'Kensington, London.' That's the capital of England, you know, and it means that the person what wrote it lived there."

"But father didn't, did he?" began Duncan.

"Hold your tongue till I've read it," Elsie replied. "I can't stop to explain beforehand. This is it:—

"'Dear Mrs. MacDouga

I have to be
teller of very bad new
sister, my poor wife die
morning. It will not be a
shock to you than it wa
me. I had no thought
it was likely to happen
a few hours previous
sent her love to you
her mother.

The two little things ar
but I have been
what I can do with th
I have not seen them'"

(here the page turns over and the missing words are from the commencement of the line)—

"'night and I don't feel
to see them yet. The sound
ir voices is too much for
hat can I, a