and her eyes shining brightly, like an expectant motherly robin
hopping on treasure trove.

He smiled back at her and said nothing. He knew she knew without his
telling.

"And so I was only second fiddle--" she began, with an assumption of
scornful irascibility which became her less than her very oldest cap.

"Oh, dear me, no! Leader of the orchestra!--Proprietor of the
house!--Sole director and manager and--"

"Tuts! It was Margaret Brandt you came to see," and the twinkling
brown eyes held the merry gray ones with a steady challenge.

"Partly,--and I was just about to say so when you interrupted me--"

"Ay! Were you now? Ye can out with things quick enough at times, my
laddie!"

"Well, you see, there are some things one does not speak about until
one feels one has an absolute right to."

"You'd have told your mother, Jock."

"Perhaps, I'm not sure,--not yet--not, at all events, until--"

"And wasn't I to take her place when she left you all alone?"

"And so you have. You're just the dearest and sweetest old--"