Ralph.

"Of course, he would never tell you if he did," said the woman of
experience, sagely; "but grandmother has a portrait in an oval
miniature of your father as a young man, and my mother's name is
on the back of it."

"Her maiden name?" queried Ralph.

Winsome Charteris nodded. Then she said wistfully: "I wish I knew
all about it. I think it is very hard that grandmother will not
tell me!"

Then, after a silence which a far-off cuckoo filled in with that
voice of his which grows slower and fainter as the midsummer heats
come on, Winsome said abruptly, "Is your father ever hard and--
unkind?"

Ralph started to his feet as if hastily to defend his father.
There was something in Winsome's eyes that made him sit down
again--something shining and tender and kind.

"My father," he said, "is very silent and reserved, as I fear I
too have been till I came down here" (he meant to say, "Till I met
you, dear," but he could not manage it), "but he is never hard or
unkind, except perhaps on matters connected with the Marrow kirk
and its order and discipline. Then he becomes like a stone, and
has no pity for himself or any. I remember him once forbidding me
to come into the study, and compelling me to keep my own garret-
room for a month, for saying that I did not see much difference