Donalds would be disgraced forever.

And yet Scotty's heart forbade his taking sides against Nancy. She was
Irish, certainly a deplorable fact, but still she was Nancy; and though
she had not been at school for some time, the boy had not forgotten
her. He sighed deeply over the complexity of human affairs. This,
then, was the cause of their unhappiness at home, of Grandaddy's
muttered threats and Granny's distressed looks.

He did not understand that there were stronger objections to Nancy in
Granny's mind than the girl's nationality. Big Malcolm's wife was
growing old, and the work of the farmhouse weighed heavily upon her.
Ever since Callum had grown up she had cherished the hope that one day
she would have sweet, trim Mary Lauchie, the finest girl in the Oa, and
a MacDonald at that, to take the reins of government in her household.
The loss of Mary would have been disappointment enough, but Callum's
new choice was a great trial to his patient, gentle mother. The
thought of Nancy Caldwell as a daughter-in-law, even though she was to
live at the north clearing, instead of with her, filled her with fear.
For Nancy had a reputation that had spread beyond the Flats. Since the
day she left school, where she had defied McAllister at his best, she
had ruled supreme in her own home from sheer dauntlessness of spirit.
Many were the tales told in the Oa of her wild outlandish doings; how
she would dress up in her brother's clothes and drive madly all over
the country; how she could ride an unbroken colt bareback, and shoot
like a man, things which everyone in the Oa knew no right-minded young
woman could ever learn. And hadn't Store Thompson's wife been, as she
declared, clean scandalised by seeing the hussy cross the Oro at the
spring floods, standing erect in a canoe and spreading out her skirts
to the gale, "Makin' a sail o' mesilf!" as she had laughingly declared
when she leaped ashore.

Scotty could not force himself to tell Isabel the disgraceful truth; he
was very quiet and gloomy as they walked homeward through the
golden-lighted forest. But Isabel had had a grand day with Betty and
had forgotten all about the original purport of their visit. She
danced along at his side full of busy chatter. Didn't he love all Long
Lauchie's folks? She did; for Betty was a dear and Mrs. Lauchie was
'most as nice as Scotty's Granny. But she loved Mary most of all,
because she was so kind and so good. And did Mary have the