So Sandie went home alone. But how delighted his parents and Elsie were to see him, I need not tell the reader!
. . . . . .
Since Sandie had been at home last, a little change had taken place near the farm. He noticed this as he came slowly down the long loaning, and just as Elsie and dear old Tyro came running delightedly to meet him. A little cottage had sprung up, a cottage consisting only of a butt and a ben, that is, dear English reader, one of two rooms, namely, a room at each side of the door, a best room and a living room or kitchen.
“But what did it mean?” Sandie asked himself. There was even a garden laid out before the door, the door itself had a rustic porch, and the cottage was prettily stob-thatched with straw.
As soon as Tyro’s first wild greetings were over, and Elsie had welcomed her brother back, he pointed to the cottage and asked for an explanation.
“Oh,” cried Elsie, “I meant to have written and told you, but Jamie and Jeannie beseeched me not to. They thought it much better it should come as a surprise to you when you returned home.”
“Well,” said Sandie, “I begin to smell a rat. They are going to be married. Is it not so?”
“Yes.”
“Sly old Jamie Duncan! I never knew he was soft in that direction. Won’t I roast him just?”
“Oh no, dear Sandie, you mustn’t. It really isn’t sly he is, so much as shy.”