"
This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archie
and Sandy,--Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that it
was absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonald
lived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin'
up," retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'as
long as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie,
with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of the
petition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform,
which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy's
ribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it;
an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!"
But he was reassured when he heard Sandy Bruce's voice overtopping the
tumult with: "A vary sensible request, my lad; an' I, for one, am o' yer
way o' thinkin'."
In which speech was a deeper significance than anybody at the time
dreamed. In that hurly-burly and hilarious confusion no one had time to
weigh words or note meanings; but there were some who recalled it a few
months later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of John
McDonald,--a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel the
brightest, most winsome of brides.
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