In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to be earned by the would-be student himself--earned by hard work, hard living, patience, perseverance and _grit_.

That's the one quality I had--grit--and it served me well in all I wanted.

I entered at St.
Andrews--graduated, and came out an M.A.That helped to give me my first chance with the press.

But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this chatter about myself! David, _you_ stop me when you think Miss Deane has had enough!" Helmsley looked at Mary's figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of her head, and the passive quietude of her generally busy hands which now lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.
"Have we had enough, Mary, do you think ?" he asked, with the glimmering of a tender little smile under his white moustache.
She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been suddenly wakened from a reverie.
"Oh no!" she answered--"I love to hear of a brave man's fight with the world--it's the finest story anyone can listen to." Reay coloured like a boy.
"I'm not a brave man,"-- he said--"I hope I haven't given you that idea.
I'm an awful funk at times." "When are those times ?" and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the question.
Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.
"Well,--please don't laugh! I'm afraid--horribly afraid--of women!" Helmsley's old eyes sparkled.
"Upon my word!" he exclaimed--"That's a funny thing for you to say!" "It is, rather,"-- and Angus looked meditatively into the fire--"It's not that I'm bashful, at all--no--I'm quite the other way, really,--only--only--ever since I was a lad I've made such an ideal of woman that I'm afraid of her when I meet her,--afraid lest she shouldn't come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn't come up to hers! It's all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born of self-consciousness.

But I've been disappointed once----" "In your ideal ?" questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest observantly upon his face.
"Yes.