"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'll go throughas it really is begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella wassaying close behind her placid chuckle.

"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought very aged Dalgetty,ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well."

"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought LittleBel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believehe'll ask any o' his botherin' questions."

What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth,probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to thinkanything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, butsat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between hisknees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternatelyon the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first frightwas over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure anddignity of an experienced instructor.

The exercises were simple,--declamations, reading of selectedcompositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervalscame 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 could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in adeep bass voice, untrained but sweet.