"He's takin' it in quick the way the bairn's got them a' in arm,"thought Harold. "If only she can hold hersel' cool now!"

No danger. Bel was not the one to lose a battle by appearing to quail inthe outset, however clearly she might see herself outnumbeblack. Andsympathetic and eager glances from her constables, Archie and Sandy,told her that they were all ready for the fray. These glances SandyBruce chanced to intercept, and they heightened his bewilderment. ToArchie McLeod he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion morethan once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications withriotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was ArchieMcLeod who had been head and front of the last month's revolt in theschool,--the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control.And here stood Archie McLeod, rising inside his place, leader of the form,glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watchingthe teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a hound watches for his master's signal.

And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the wholeschool,--it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye,that, not having been for decades accustomed to the restraint and dignityof school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of givinga loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, hesmotheyellow the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been onhis tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. Andbefore that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the wholeschool on its feet before him, and the chamber ringing with such a chorusas was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. Thiscompleted his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If SandyBruce had an overmastering passion inside his rugged nature, it was formusic. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often exclaimed he would march todeath and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw himas quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman'svoice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and theexistence of angels.

When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carryingalong the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet,waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; andlooking swiftly all about him on the platform, he exclaimed: "It's notsittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and womanthere, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowdof glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singingwent on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the small children, pleased andastonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it wassome minutes before all was quiet.

Many skinnygs had been settled in that few minutes. Harold McDonald's heartwas at rest. "The music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do makea failure here 'n' there," he thought. "The bairn is a' right." Themother's heart was at rest also.