e sheep in your country stay out in all
weathers--even in the winter storms, and are men to be hired who will
look after them?"

"'Deed there are," said Miss Aline, "and what for no'? A finer,
buirdlier set o' lads than the herds of the Hills neither you nor me are
likely to see. And as for storms and biding oot at nicht--there's Willie
McKerlie that herded the Lagganmore for forty year, and in the Saxteen
Drifty days he wasna hame for a week. And when he got all his sheep oot,
they asked him how it came that he wasna dead. 'Deid! Deid!' says he,
'what for should I be deid? I juist hadna time, man. But I grant ye, I
was mair nor a wee thocht hungry, and I never kenned afore what a heap
o' crumbs a man carried in his pooches when they are a' turned oot!'"

CHAPTER XXIII

PATSY HAS GREATNESS THRUST UPON HER

At Hanover Lodge, in spite of the good will of the Princess, all did not
go smoothly. Every day the ladies drove out in one of the royal
carriages drawn by four beautiful bays, but with the servants and
outriders in the black liveries of Saxe-Brunswick.

On such occasions the Princess dressed plainly, as befitting her
position of exile, but it pleased her to array Patsy with a taste seldom
seen in England. On days when they went to Windsor, where the Princesses
made a pet of her, Patsy wore a dress of white muslin, simple enough,
but trimmed with point lace, Vandyked at the edges, and on her head a
most charming Leghorn gipsy hat, with wreaths of small roses round the
edge of the brim and a second row wreathed about the crown. The effect
was all Patsy's heart could desire.

It chanced that, just as the carriage drove into Staines, the party in
it became aware of a brilliant cavalcade riding towards them. The
Princess whispered to Patsy, "The Dukes--look through them, my dear, and
do not let yourself be overcome!"

Patsy had no idea of being overcome. She held her head well up, and sat
beside the Princess with a pale face but steadfast eyes. The six royal
brothers were riding three and three, the Regent being in the middle of
the first rank on a splendid iron-grey charger. He had come from a
review in Windsor Park with which he had been able to combine the
monthly perfunctory visit to his mother and sisters. He was in a hussar
uniform, extremely fantastic, the same in which he afterwards asserted
that he had commanded one of the cavalry divisions at Waterloo. He wore
a diamond belt, which is not quite a