* * * * *
When Macgregor, alone save for the slumbering Jimsie, had opened the parcel he muttered savagely: 'Oh, dash it! I wish she had kep' her rotten socks to hersel'!'—and stuffed the gift behind the chest of drawers. The message he tore into a hundred fragments. Then he went to bed and slept better, perhaps, than he deserved. He expected there would be a letter in the morning, for Christina had left no message with his mother.
But there was no letter, so, after breakfast, he made a trip to the camp on the chance, and in the hope, that one might be lying there. Another blow! Managing to dodge Willie, he hurried home to meet the second morning delivery. Nothing again! . . . His mother's anxious questions as to his health irritated him, and he so far lost his temper as to ask his sister why she was wearing a face like a fiddle. Poor Jeannie! For half the night she had been weeping for her hero and wishing the most awful things for the unknown Maggie.
'Ye'll be back for yer denner, laddie?' his mother called after him as he left the house.
'I dinna ken,' he replied over his shoulder.
Mrs. Robinson felt that her worst forebodings were about to be realized.
'Never again!' she muttered in the presence of her daughter, who was helping her with the housework.
'What, mither?'
'Never again will I open a paircel that's no addressed to me.'
'But it—it might ha'e been a—a fish,' said Jeannie, who would have sought to comfort the most sinful penitent in the world. 'Some girls,' she went on, 'dinna mean onything special by "fondest love." They dinna mean onything mair nor "kind regairds."'