an," said the Laird of Cairn Ferris,
"I should not have sent her to a princess for the perfecting of her
education. But you insisted upon it. Well, I trust my daughter. I have
trusted her in greater dangers than any which can arrive through this
Austrian young man. Never fear, Patsy will clear her own feet. The
Princess shall have an answer to her letter, and the wooer as well, but
I would not go to London to push the matter, no, not if she were to be
an empress!"

And from this position Adam Ferris, with characteristic doggedness, was
in no wise to be moved.

"You put me in a very awkward position," said Julian, discontentedly, "I
cannot go myself, and even if I did, it would not be the same thing as
the protection and approval of her father--"

A light broke upon Adam, and he smiled grimly.

"I think I remember your telling me, Julian, that in asking for a maid's
hand in these countries, it was the correct etiquette for the nearest
relatives of the bridegroom to come in state to the home of the parents
of the bride, to ask for their daughter's hand. Now at Cairn Ferris I
shall be glad to receive and to entertain to the best of my ability any
of this Prince Eitel's family, or the Prince himself if he likes to make
the journey. But you yourself have made me a strict believer in
etiquette in such matters, and from Cairn Ferris I shall not stir!"

At which Julian Wemyss snorted aloud and broke off the interview.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE DUKES ... AND SUPSORROW

Every good action has its fruit, though the doer of it but seldom plucks
it in this world. Contrariwise the fruits of ill-done deeds are early
ripeners, and it is seldom the teeth of the children that are set on
edge.

Patsy, faring leisurely westward to meet the Princess in the park and be
driven home, at the corner of Lyonesse House, just where you turn
towards the green of the tree-tops discerned at the street's end, came
within the sound of a mighty voice.

A tall, heavily built man of fierce aspect and red choleric face was
picking himself up off the ground, opposite a house from which he had
been forcibly ejected, and a crowd of ordinary street loafers was
gathering about. Patsy would have turned away, but there was something
curiously familiar about the tones of the voice and the imaginative
dialect which drew her in spite of herself.

"Fower against yin!" shouted the voice; "and three o' them I hae markit.
Whaur's your Dukes noo? I hae gi'e