DORNING is the prettiest village in Scotland. Other vil lages lay claim to this distinction, but their charms are of a different character, depending upon extraneous things, such as mountains or lochs or other natural objects for which the claimant cannot rightly demand credit. Dorning relies upon no scenery. It has none. It is situated in low-lying country, inland a mile or so from the Firth of Forth, snuggling itself within a belt of trees that shade its cottages from the sun in summer, and blunt the edge of the east winds that blow from the sea during the greater part of the year.

Dorning has a railway station, but it keeps it at arm's length-fully a mile from the village, and not even the echo of the shriek of a whistle disturbs the sleepy silence that hovers over the village green. This exclusiveness is due to the fact that the family of Rintoul has reigned over Dorning for many generations, and is intensely proud of the village and jealous of innovation. They have been good landlords, the Rintouls, and it stands to their credit, and to theirs alone, that

Dorning is the prettiest village in Scotland.

The cottages nestle round the village green-a long isosceles triangle of velvet turf where the tenants' cows browse peacefully under the care of an ancient pensioner-peeping out brightly from well-kept shrubberies fenced off by low green palings. Two sides of the triangle are thus wooded and green, the third is a high old stone wall, turreted and battlemented, which encloses the picturesque ruins of Dorning Castle. The Rintouls have tended the ruins well, kept the policies and gardens in good condition, 80 that Dorning

Castle is considered one of the sights of the county.

Dorning House, the modern seat of the family, known to the tenants as the "Big Hoose," lies behind the castle, between the village and the sea. The little river Loun flows through the grounds, and the house was built more than a century ago in a loop of the river, so that three sides of it are surrounded as by a moat. The house, though large, has little claim to architectural beauty, but it is sound and comfortable, and its gardens and grounds, laid

out by dead and gone Rintouls with considerable taste, give it a grace that atones for the lack of beauty in the actual building.

Beyond lies the Firth of Forth, with the little island of Meath lying as though just anchored, half a mile from the sandy beach. Meath, rocky and uninhabited, is in the parish of Dorning, and, like all the rest of the parish, is a Rintoul possession.

If one walks to the apex of the village triangle whose base is the wall of Dorning Castle, one comes upon the Rintoul Arms, the unique inn of Dorning, and, leaving the green and following down a wooded lane, one reaches the Parish Kirk, with the manse close by, hidden amongst the trees.

Here, upon the afternoon of the day on which Neil McNeil entered into the service of Francesca Marinetti, the subject of the Rintoul inheritance was under discussion, though under vastly different circumstances.

To begin with, it was behind a locked door, not on account of the secrecy of the subject the dead Laird's will was the talk of the village-but because the minister's wife was smoking a cigarette.

Mrs Murdoch bore a strong resemblance to a one-man band, in that she smoked her cigarette, suckled her child, kept an ear cocked against the approach of footsteps in the passage without, and carried on an animated conversation with the

VOL. CCXI.-NO. MCCLXXVIII.

remaining occupant of the room. It is hardly necessary to state, in the face of such evidence of versatility, that the minister's wife had held an eminent position upon the musical comedy stage before her marriage.

"Jean," she was saying at the moment of the introduction, "I believe you and Old Bill are leaving me out of something. If there's going to be any excitement I won't be left out."

The girl to whom she spoke sat in a low chair, absorbed but shy.

She was a charming girl. Not, perhaps, strictly beautiful, but with such an engaging expression and distinction of appearance that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have straightened their ties and preened themselves at sight of her. The hundredth man would have been misogynic or myopic. She was small and slender, yet gracefully formed, and her face was alive with changing expression. Her hair was of a rich deep shade of brown, arranged demurely with a central parting, and dressed low over her ears. This quakerish simplicity gave an added piquancy to her dainty face.

She laughed prettily at her friend's protest.

"You and your 'Old Bill,' she said lightly. "One of these days you will forget yourself and call him 'Old Bill' to Mrs Anderson at the post office, and both your reputations will be gone. How could the elders be expected to retain their

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they knew that his wife called him 'Old Bill,' and what would they think of the depravity of a woman who could take such a liberty? In fact, Clarice, you must be the poorest attempt at a minister's wife that ever was. You're far too much like a human woman.'

"I'm sorry," laughed the other. "I've had so little practice. Perhaps it will come with time. As it is, I live in a perpetual state of panic. Thank the Lord, Old Bill doesn't mind. There you are, you see. I suppose I shouldn't thank the Lord for little things like that, but I'm so grateful. But suppose we give my shortcomings a rest. I believe you only brought them up to drag like a red herring across the track. What have you and the minister been concocting behind my back I saw you together in the garden this morning deep in something, and I'm sure it was the estate."

She pointed her cigarette accusingly at Jean Rintoul with one hand, while she held Young Bill to her breast with the other.

"Of course we were talking about the estate," admitted the girl." Mr Murdoch thinks Mr Murdoch thinks of nothing else. I believe it will come out like a rash all over his sermons if it isn't settled soon. I look on my chance as a forlorn hope, but he won't admit it. Does he not talk about the Rintoul inheritance in his sleep, Clarice ?

well, reduce the nourishment in Young Bill's food supply. I tell him it's rot, and that Young Bill's food supply can very safely be left in my hands; but he's frightfully pig-headed like all you Scotch people, only you like to call it dour and be proud of it. So, you see, if there are any plots and schemes afoot, I shall have to count on you to tell me about them, Jean, for I won't be left out."

"And then I shall be in the minister's black books," said Jean Rintoul. Still, I'm no more afraid of him than you are, Clarice. He's one of those bulldog-looking men who will eat out of one's hand. I've never seen a man so henpecked in my life."

Mrs Murdoch laughed.

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You call it henpecked," she said, "but that's simply because you don't understand Old Bill. He says he is a philosopher, which means that as long as he doesn't care about things too much any one can have their own way, but when it's a matter of principle every one must have his way. That's why I am feeding Young Bill myself. His father thinks bottles are irreligious."

"I believe you are right," agreed Jean. "He's too lazy to bother about little things.'

"Not lazy-broad-minded," retorted Mrs Murdoch, who said many things about her husband

"Very well, broad-minded be it," Jean acquiesced with a smile of understanding. "His plan for getting possession of Dorning House for me is certainly broad-minded-for a - for a minister of the Church of Scotland."

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as a padre. He just loves fighting. But isn't one of your rivals a girl?"

"Yes. My Aunt Kate's daughter. Her father was a Corsican, and my aunt ran away with him. I never saw her, and, of course, I have never seen my cousin, though

Young Bill had dropped asleep with repletion or with the exhaustion attendant upon his labours, and Mrs Murdoch dislodged him gently, adjusted her attire, and placed the unconscious child carefully in his cradle, after which she inhaled a great draught of smoke and blew it out in a long sigh of satisfaction.

"Tell me, Jean," she repeated.

There is very little to tell," said her friend. 'We've thought and thought, and talked and talked, and the whole result of it all is that Mr Murdoch proposes that he should be at the front door of Dorning House long before daylight on the morning when the competition begins. I am to ride up on my bicycle, timing myself to arrive exactly at sunrise. If either of my rivals tries to interfere he will knock them down while I ring the bell for old Ronald. Once I am in, he says, I am safe. No one can dislodge me."

several times in the papers. She is quite a celebrity, and as she is singing in London now, she will probably have a shot at the inheritance. Judging by her portraits, she is too dreamy and unpractical to have much of a chance. The real danger is Uncle Rufus.”

"So I have gathered. He is rather a desperado, isn't he?"

"I don't know what to say," replied Jean, her brows knit in quite an attractive frown. “I always liked him when I was little. He is a bold, dashing kind of man, and from the hints my father and mother used to let drop, I think he used to get badly into debt and expect the rest of the family to get him out. Uncle Robert used to call him the greatest scoundrel unhung, but that might mean very little, for Uncle Robert was an extremist in words. Whatever. else he may be, Uncle Rufus is no coward. He was over age, but he joined the Sportsmen's Battalion, got a commission, and I heard that he saw any amount of service. What hope have I against a man like him?"

Jean shook her head ruefully. "I doubt if that treatment will be successful with Uncle Rufus," she said. "I think he is too cunning to give Mr Murdoch a chance, and even if he did-my uncle is as big and strong as the minister. I have very little hope."

The whole thing's a scandal," said Mrs Murdoch hotly. 'Why couldn't old Mr Rintoul leave everything to you decently, and not make a fool of himself publicly after he was dead? I don't understand you Scotch people with your silly family squabbles. You should all be publicly smacked."

She took a little case from her pocket and extracted another cigarette, which she lit from the stump of the old one, throwing the latter into the heart of the fire and carefully observing its incineration. One had to take precautions.

I don't know why I should be publicly smacked," protested Jean Rintoul. 'I'm only a victim."

In this contention she had the support of practically the whole population of Dorning, where the late Laird's will, and the chances of his three descendants, were canvassed eagerly. Jean Rintoul was well known and popular amongst them; her Uncle Rufus hardly so well known but notoriously unpopular; while Francesca Marinetti was merely a name to which a certain

Jean was well known because she had lived in Dorning ever since the death of her mother some years before. Her father had died when she was a child, and his widow and daughter had lived comfortably enough on what he had left to them in a little house in Edinburgh. On the death of her mother-to the surprise of every one who knew him-her Uncle Robert had come forward with the offer of a home to the orphaned girl, and she had lived with him at Dorning House until his death.

The tenants, and indeed every one who was acquainted with the circumstances, had taken it for granted that Laird Rintoul intended to make her his heiress, and it came as a terrible shock to the village when the contents of the will were made known. Perhaps the girl herself was least surprised of any, because she knew her uncle best. After the funeral she packed her belongings philosophically and went off to stay with friends in Edinburgh, where she remained until a few days before the conversation recorded.

When the Reverend William Murdoch-Captain Murdoch he had the right to call himselfreturned to his parish with the young wife whom he had found in a canteen in France, Jean Rintoul had quickly become a constant visitor at the manse, and an intimate friend of the minister's wife, who, as a mere