When the frugal meal had been eaten, the latter recrossed the sward to the street, and took up again the round of his commissions.
It was after three by the great clock in the cupola of the Capitol when he stood before the door of Alexander Ker, the silversmith, and found entrance made difficult by the serried shoulders of half a dozen young men standing within the store, laughing, and making bantering speeches to some one hidden from the Highlander's vision.

Presently an appealing voice, followed by a low cry, proclaimed that the some one was a woman.
MacLean had a lean and wiry strength which had stood him in good stead upon more than one occasion in his checkered career.

He now drove an arm like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers thereof to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring and facing Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the silversmith's long table.

One arm was around the boy who had rowed her to the Fair View store a week agone; with the other she was defending her face from the attack of a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss.

The boy, a slender, delicate lad of fourteen, struggled to free himself from his sister's restraining arm, his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps.