“Jock, we were just wanting you!” said Margaret, sitting up.  “Have all the things come all right?”

“All come all right,” and he wondered how she would take his next announcement.  “In fact more came than we expected.”

“I guess we can use it all,” said Miss Penny.  “You’ve no idea of the capacity of children.  I know something about it, and these children are more expansible even than school-girls.”

“I was surprised to meet a gentleman down there who says he has come across on purpose for the wedding.”

“A gentleman—­come for the wedding?” and both girls eyed him as pictured terriers greet the word “Rats!”

“I’ll give you three guesses.”

“Mr. Pixley,” said Miss Penny.

“Bull’s-eye first shot!  Clever girl!”

“Not really, Jock!” said Margaret, with a suspicion of dismay in her voice.

“Well, Charles Svendt anyway—­as representing the old man, he says.”

“But what has he come for, and how did he get to know?”

“I didn’t ask him.  It was quite enough to see him there.  He says he’s going to stop it,”—­and Margaret’s cheeks flamed,—­“but I’ve assured him that he can’t, and I’ll take jolly good care that he doesn’t, if I have to knock him on the head and drop him off the Coupee.”

“It would be shameful of him if he tried,” cried Miss Penny.  “Just let me have a talk with him, Mr. Graeme, and I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.  He’s really not such a bad sort, you know.  Where is he?”

“I left him at the Bel-Air about to tackle lobsters.  My idea is to take him to the Vicar, then to the Seigneur.  They both understand the whole matter.  I explained it fully when I told them we intended getting married here.  When they understand that this is the gentleman who would like to occupy my place, and that he has no legal grounds for interfering, I think they will open his eyes—­”

“I do hope he won’t make any trouble in the church,” said Margaret, with a little flutter.

“I’ll promise you he won’t.”

“I’m sure he won’t, if you can make it quite clear that it could not possibly accomplish what, I suppose, his father sent him to try to do,” said Miss Penny.  “Charles Pixley is no fool, though he has his little peculiarities.”

“It would be a wonder if he hadn’t some, after his daddie,” said Graeme lightly.  “I’m sorry he’s come, Meg, but I’m certain you don’t need to worry about him.  If I could have knocked him on the head and dropped him in the sea and said nothing to nobody—­”

“Don’t be absurd, Jock,” said Margaret, and her voice showed that the matter was troubling her in spite of his assurances.

“After lunch I shall call for him and take him for a little walk.  If you’d seen him when he got to the Bel-Air after toiling up the Creux Road!  He was nearly in pieces.  I’ll trot him round to the Vicarage, and then to the Seigneurie, and then I’ll bring him here and turn him over to you and Hennie Penny.  He’ll be as limp as a rag by that time, and as wax in your hands.”