y?" he asked: he did not often have luncheon at home.

"I will go into the Park with you in the afternoon if you like," she
said: all the scene had been diligently rehearsed on one side, before.

Lavender was a little surprised, but he was in an amiable mood.

"All right!" he said. "Have something with olives in it. Two, sharp."

With that he went out, and Sheila, with a wild commotion at her heart,
saw him walk away through the square. She was afraid Mairi might
have arrived before he left. And, indeed, he had not gone above a few
minutes when a four-wheeler drove up, and an elderly man got out and
waited for the timid-faced girl inside to alight. With a rush like
that of a startled deer, Sheila was down the stairs, along the hall
and on the pavement; and it was, "Oh, Mairi! and have you come at
last? And are you very well? And how are all the people in Borva? And
Mr. M'Alpine, how are you? and will you come into the house?"

Certainly, that was a strange sight for a decorous London square--the
mistress of a house, a young girl with bare head, coming out on the
pavement to shake hands in a frantic fashion with a young maid-servant
and an elderly man whose clothes had been pretty well tanned by
sunlight and sea-water! And Sheila would herself help to carry Mairi's
luggage in. And she would take no denial from Mr. M'Alpine, whose
luggage was also carried in. And she would herself pay the cabman, as
strangers did not know about these things, Sheila's knowledge being
exhibited by her hastily giving the man five shillings for driving
from Euston Station. And there was breakfast waiting for them both as
soon as Mairi could get her face washed; and would Mr. M'Alpine have
a glass of whisky after the night's traveling?--and it was very
good whisky whatever, as it had come all the way from Stornoway. Mr.
M'Alpine was nothing loath.

"And wass you pretty well, Miss Sheila?" said Mairi, looking timidly
and hastily up, and forgetting altogether that Sheila had another name
now. "It will be a great thing for me to go back to sa Lewis, and
tell them I wass seeing you, and you wass looking so well. And I will
be thinking I wass neffer coming to any one I knew any more; and it is
a great fright I hef had since we came away from sa Lewis; and I wass
thinking we would neffer find you among all sa people and so far away
across sa sea and sa land. Eh--!" The girl stopped in astonishment.
Her eyes had wandered up to a portrait on the