"Tuts! It was Margaret Brandt you came to see," and the twinkling brown eyes held the merry gray ones with a steady challenge.
"Partly,—and I was just about to say so when you interrupted me—"
"Ay! Were you now? Ye can out with things quick enough at times, my laddie!"
"Well, you see, there are some things one does not speak about until one feels one has an absolute right to."
"You'd have told your mother, Jock."
"Perhaps, I'm not sure,—not yet—not, at all events, until—"
"And wasn't I to take her place when she left you all alone?"
"And so you have. You're just the dearest and sweetest old—"
"Second fiddle! Come away and we'll talk of Margaret, since that's all you come for."
"And isn't she worth coming for? Did you ever in all your life see anything more wonderful than Margaret Brandt?"