As soon as I was old enough--about ten,--I helped him in his work--I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture.

The man who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them--wouldn't go near them for his life--and before I'd been with them a fortnight they all knew me.

I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were, with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I went to drive them home, singing as I came.

And my father said to me one night--'Laddie, tell me the truth--are ye ever scared at the bulls!' 'No, father!' said I--'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he laughed--by Jove!--how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said--'An' as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true too, for I always thought well of myself.

You see, if I hadn't thought well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of _me_!" "There's something in that!" said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in his eyes--"Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than eight bulls!" "Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance--it was just that I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything else,"-- and Angus laughed,--then with a sudden knitting of his brows as though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added--"Even as a laddie I had an idea--and I have it now--that there was something in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own,--something that he would not and _could_ not destroy till His purpose had been fulfilled!" Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly.