"The minister told the laird that Mr. Touris put fifty pounds in the
plate--"

Strickland held up his hand, and the scholars, sighing, returned to
work. _Buzz, buzz!_ went the bees outside the window. The sun climbed
high. Alexander shut his geometry and came through the break in the
wall and across the span of green to the school-room.

"That's done, Mr. Strickland."

Strickland looked at the paper that his eldest pupil put before him.
"Yes, that is correct. Do you want, this morning, to take up the
reading?"

"I had as well, I suppose."

"If you go to Edinburgh--if you do as your father wishes and apply
yourself to the law--you will need to read well and to speak well. You
do not do badly, but not well enough. So, let's begin!" He put out his
hand and drew from the bookshelf a volume bearing the title, _The
Treasury of Orators_. "Try what you please."

Alexander took the book and moved to the unoccupied window. Here he
half sat, half stood, the morning light flowing in upon him. He opened
the volume and read, with a questioning inflection, the title beneath
his eyes, "'The Cranes of Ibycus'?"

"Yes," assented Strickland. "That is a short, graphic thing."

Alexander read: