obs him of his plaid, you must be watchful of
that man, Count Victor. For there is something wrong. Is it not true,
that I am saying, father?" She turned a questioning gaze to Doom, who
had no answer but a sigh.

"You will have perhaps heard my father miscall the _breacan_, miscall
the tartan, and--"

"Not at all," cried the Baron. "There is a great difference between
condemning and showing an indifference."

"I think, father," said Olivia, "we are among friends. Count Victor, as
you say, could understand about our fancies for the hills, and it would
be droll indeed if he smiled at us for making a treasure of the tartan.
Whatever my father, the stupid man, the darling, may be telling you of
the tartan and the sword, Count Victor, do not believe that we are such
poor souls as to forget them. Though we must be wearing the Saxon in our
clothes and in our speech, there are many like me--and my dear father
there--who will not forget."

It was a curious speech all that, not without a problem, as well as the
charm of the unexpected and the novel, to Count Victor. For, somehow
or other, there seemed to be an under meaning in the words; Olivia was
engaged upon the womanly task--he thought--of lecturing some one. If he
had any doubt about that, there was Mungo behind the Baron's chair, his
face just showing over his shoulder, seamed with smiles that spoke of
some common understanding between him and the daughter of his master;
and once, when she thrust more directly at her father, the little
servitor deliberately winked to the back of his master's head--a very
gnome of slyness.

"But you have not told me about the ladies of France," said she. "Stay!
you will be telling me that again; it is not likely my father would be
caring to hear about them so much as about the folk we know that have
gone there from Scotland. They are telling me that many good, brave men
are there wearing their hearts out, and that is the sore enough trial."

Count Victor thought of Barisdale and his cousin-german, young
Glengarry, gambling in that frowsiest boozing-ken in the Rue Tarane--the
Cafe de la Paix--without credit for a _louis d'or_; he thought of James
Mor Drummond and the day he came to him behind the Tuileries stable
clad in rags of tartan to beg a loan; none of these was the picturesque
figure of loyalty in exile that he should care to paint for this young
woman.

But he remembered also Cameron, Macleod, Traquair, a score of gallant
hea