I was near putting in another beautiful bit about weeping-willows." "Well, why didn't you ?" Tommy looked up with an impudent snigger.

"You could never guess," he said.
"Answer me at once," thundered his preceptor.

"Was it because--" "No," interrupted Tommy, so conscious of Mr.Cathro's inferiority that to let him go on seemed waste of time.

"It was because, though it is a beautiful thing in itself, I felt a servant lassie wouldna have thought o't.

I was sweer," he admitted, with a sigh; then firmly, "but I cut it out." Again Cathro admired, reluctantly.