re coffee, please, father," said Ken, with his mouth full. "Have a
scone, father? They're prime."

"Gently with the butter, my boy. There is such a thing as bile."

"Is there, father?" said Kenneth, who was spreading the rich yellow
churning a full quarter of an inch thick.

"Is there, sir! Yes, there is. As I know to my cost. Ah!" he added,
with a sigh, and his face wrinkled and made him look ten years older;
"but there was a time when I did not know the meaning of the word!"

"Oh, I say, father," cried Kenneth merrily, "don't! You're always
pretending to be old, and yet you can walk me down stalking, and Long
Shon says you can make him sore-footed any day."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" said The Mackhai, smiling.

"Oh, but you can, father!" said Kenneth, with his mouth full. "And see
how you ran with that salmon yesterday, all among the stones."

"Ah, yes! I manage to hold my own; but I hope you'll husband your
strength better than I did, my boy," said The Mackhai, with a sigh.

"I only hope I shall grow into such a fine man!" cried Kenneth, with his
face lighting up, as he gazed proudly at his father. "Why, Donald
says--"

"Tut, tut, tut! Silence, you miserable young flatterer! Do you want to
make your father conceited? There, that will do."

"Coming fishing to-day, father?"

There was no answer.

The Mackhai had taken up a letter brought in that morning by one of the
gillies, and was frowning over it as he re-read its contents, and then
sat thoughtfully gazing out of the window across the glittering sea, at
the blue mountains in the distance, tapping the table with his fingers
the while.

"Wonder what's the matter!" thought Kenneth. "Some one wants some
money, I suppose."

The boy's face puckered up a little as he ceased eating, and watched his
father's face, the furrows in the boy's brow giving him a wonderful
likeness to the keen-eyed, high-browed representative of a fine old
Scottish clan.

"Wish I had plenty of money," thought Kenneth; and he sighed as he saw
his father's face darken.

Not that there was the faintest sign of poverty around, for the room was
tastily furnished in good old style; the carpet was thick, a silver
coffee-pot glistened upon the table, and around the walls were goodly
paintings of ancestral Mackhais, from the bare-armed, scale-armoured
chief who fought the Macdougals of Lome, down to Ronald Mackhai, who
represented Ross-shire when King William sat upon the thro