hef come all the way from London?"

"Well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Lavender, "I should be sorry to think that
our coming had interfered in any way whatever with your daughter's
amusements."

"Amusements!" said the old man with a look of surprise. "It iss not
amusements she will go for: that is no amusements for her. It is for
some teffle of a purpose she will go, when it iss the house that is the
proper place for her, with friends coming from so great a journey."

Presently it became clear that a race between the two boats was
inevitable, both of them making for the same point. Mackenzie would take
no notice of such a thing, but there was a grave smile on Duncan's face,
and something like a look of pride in his keen eyes.

"There iss no one, not one," he said, almost to himself, "will take her
in better than Miss Sheila--not one in ta island. And it wass me tat
learnt her every bit o' ta steering about Borva."

The strangers could now make out that in the other boat there were two
girls--one seated in the stern, the other by the mast. Ingram took out
his handkerchief and waved it: a similar token of recognition was
floated out from the other vessel. But Mackenzie's boat presently had
the better of the wind, and slowly drew on ahead, until, when her
passengers landed on the rude stone quay, they found the other and
smaller craft still some little distance off.

Lavender paid little attention to his luggage. He let Duncan do with it
what he liked. He was watching the small boat coming in, and getting a
little impatient, and perhaps a little nervous, in waiting for a
glimpse of the young lady in the stern. He could vaguely make out that
she had an abundance of dark hair looped up; that she wore a small straw
hat with a short white feather in it; and that, for the rest, she seemed
to be habited entirely in some rough and close-fitting costume of dark
blue. Or was there a glimmer of a band of rose-red round her neck?

The small boat was cleverly run alongside the jetty: Duncan caught her
bow and held her fast, and Miss Sheila, with a heavy string of lythe in
her right hand, stepped, laughing and blushing, on to the quay. Ingram
was there. She dropped the fish on the stones and took his two hands in
hers, and without uttering a word looked a glad welcome into his face.
It was a face capable of saying unwritten things--fine and delicate in
form, and yet full of an abundance of health and good spirits that shone
in the deep