gers between the two houses. A carriage road led
along the highway to the cliffs, and then bent sharply down steep
zigzags to the stables of the Abbey, but all ordinary intercourse
between the houses was conducted along the footpath by the Abbey Burn.

"Uncle Julian," said the girl, as if continuing some former
conversation, "is quite different from father. He has seen the world and
can tell tales of black savages and Arab chiefs and piracy in the China
seas. But father has just lived in his own house of Cairn Ferris all his
life. You know he called me Patricia after my mother--Patricia Wemyss
Ferris. Oh, not even your grandfather is better known than my father.
They made him a justice of the peace, too, but because he can do no good
to the poor folk against the great landlords, he mostly stays at home.
You know our house? From the outside--yes, of course. Well, when your
grandfather will let you, you shall know it from the inside too. But not
till then. Oh, it is big, roomy and quite comfortable, and though it
would not hold an army like Castle Raincy, it is quite big enough to get
lost in."

"Of course," said Raincy, vaguely feeling the necessity of defending
himself and those who were his, "if it were not for grandfather and his
wretched old feud, mother and I would come and see you to-morrow. She
is--well, she would love you!"

"Would she, I doubt?" said Patsy, giving her bonnet a vicious jerk to
bid it stay on her head; "mothers seldom like those whom their sons--"

"Adore!" put in Louis Raincy smilingly.

"Out, traitor!" cried the girl with a quick, scornful upthrow of the
chin, "it is the smile that saves you, Louis, lad. Easy it is to see
that you have had little experience of talking to women, when you come
firing off words that ought to mean great things into the middle of a
talk about smuggling cases and justices of the peace."

"But I do mean--" began Louis, preparing to take solemn oath.

"You mean nothing of the sort, and well it is for you, little boy.
Quiet, now, and listen! I am a Pict--yes, I, Patsy Ferris! Uncle Julian
says so. I am (so he tells me) a throwback to my grandmother's folk who
were Fingauls--and her father the Laird of Kirkmaiden was the chief of
them. That is why I do nothing, say nothing, think nothing like a
scone-faced maid of the Scots. I am centuries older than they. If it
ever arrives to me to fall in love with any man--it seems impossible,
but Uncle Julian says it will come