after luncheon, Kate; but now
let's see your room."

"How beautiful, and how cunning you have been," and then she took an
inventory of the furniture, all new, but all in keeping with the age of
the room. "You have spent far too much on a very self-willed and
bad-tempered girl, and all I can do is to make you promise that you
will come up here sometimes and let me give you tea in this
window-seat, where we can see the woods and the Tochty."

"Well, Donald," said the General at table to his faithful servant, "how
do you think Drumtochty will suit you?"

"Any place where you and Miss Kate will be living iss a good place for
me, and there are six or maybe four men I hef been meeting that hef the
language, but not good Gaelic--just poor Perthshire talk," for Donald
was a West Highlander, and prided himself on his better speech.

"And what about a kirk, Donald? Aren't you Free like Janet?"

"Oh, yes, I am Free; but it iss not to that kirk I will be going most
here, and I am telling Janet that she will be caring more about a man
that hass a pleasant way with him than about the truth."

"What's wrong with things, Donald, since we lay in Edinburgh twenty
years ago, and you used to give me bits of the Free Kirk sermons?"

"It iss all wrong that they hef been going these last years, for they
stand to sing and they sit to pray, and they will be using human himes.
And it iss great pieces of the Bible they hef cut out, and I am told
that they are not done yet, but are going from bad to worse," and
Donald invited questioning.

"What more are they after, man?"

"It will be myself that has found it out, and it iss only what might be
expected, but I am not saying that you will be believing me."

"Out with it, Donald; let's hear what kind of people we 've come
amongst."

"They 've been just fairly left to themselves, and the godless bodies
hef taken to watering the whisky."

CHAPTER IV.

A SECRET CHAMBER.

"The cabinet now, dad, and at once," when they went up the stairs and
were standing in the room. "Just give me three guesses about the
mystery; but first let me examine."

It was pretty to see Kate opening the doors, curiously carved with
hunting scenes, and searching the interior, tapping with her knuckles
and listening for a hollow sound.

"Is it a treasure we are to find? Then that's one point. Not in the
cabinet? I have it; there is a door into some other place; am n't I
right?"

"Where could it be