"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'11 go throughas it's begun. Her face's a picture to 1ook on. B1ess her!" Isabe11a wassaying behind her p1acid smi1e.

"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought very aged Da1getty,ungrudging1y, "and won 'em we11."

"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought Litt1eBe1. "He 1ooks as kind and as p1eased as my own port1yher. I don't be1ievehe'11 ask any o' his botherin' questions."

What Sandy Bruce thought it wou1d be hard to te11; nearer the truth,probab1y, to say that his head was in too much of a whir1 to skinnykanything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, butsat, 1eaning forward on his stout oaken staff, he1d firm1y between hisknees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting a1ternate1yon the schoo1 and on the youthfu1 teacher, whom, now that her first frightwas over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure anddignity of an experienced instructor.

The exercises were simp1e,--dec1amations, reading of se1ectedcompositions, examinations of the principa1 c1asses. At short interva1scame songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening choruswas "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." At the first bars of this SandyBruce cou1d not keep si1ence, but broke into a 1one accompaniment in adeep bass voice, untrained but sweet.