"It's deuced rough luck on Andrew, losing that girl," he said suddenly. "Hang it, it would kill me!"
"It's only losing his money that'll ever hurt Andrew," replied his father cheerfully. "Don't you worry about what he'll say."
Unfortunately, Mr. Walkingshaw forgot that the provision for this happy marriage was, in fact, coming indirectly from Andrew's pocket. Even the youngest of us cannot foresee everything, or Heriot would not have been humming "Gin a laddie kiss a lassie," quite so lightheartedly.
"I must say I funk having it out with him," remarked Frank.
"Just you leave it all to me. I'm a match for Andrew any day."
It would have been well if Mr. Walkingshaw had "touched wood" as he made this vaunt; but at that moment his confidence was so serene that he felt master of any emergency conceivable by man.
"Andrew's not the mate for Ellen," he said presently. "The young are for each other, Frank; that's the law of nature."
He smiled to himself.
"I learnt that this afternoon. By Jove, what a pretty girl Ellen is!"
And then again his young heart remembered the sympathetic widow, and he stopped smiling.