of
jam-making and house-wifery, there was no one in whom Patsy could
confide.

In her heart she was firmly resolved not to marry the Prince. But the
Princess had been so kind, even so affectionate after her manner, and
Uncle Julian would be so disappointed--that against her better judgment
Patsy let matters drift. Her father was so non-committal and far-off
that no help could be got out of him. Even had he been in the next room,
he would not have helped her to decide, though he might have been useful
in other ways. But as it was she had to think and act for herself. The
old Earl continued his visits, generally appearing on the Friday
afternoon and frequently staying over to supper. At first he was not
wholly pleased to find Kennedy McClure, his enemy and victor in many a
hard-contested land-bargain, established as a friend of the Princess
Elsa. But when he had seen how well the man carried himself, how simple
and unobtrusive were his manners, he called to mind that the Supsorrow
McClures were of good blood, and that, though they had taken the Orange
and Hanoverian side, they had never grasped at Raincy property during
the black days of the attainder, as the Bunny Bunnys and Dalrymples had
done--on whom be the blackest of Raincy anathemas!

Now the Laird of Supsorrow was a severely regular man, and always took a
daily walk through the park or along the river-bank to watch the craft,
the bustle of the towpath, the wrangling of the sea-coal porters--all
the sights and sounds of the waterside so strange to him. Patsy fell
easily into the habit of accompanying him. There was a freshness and yet
a friendliness in the sound of that deep voice, unmistakable and
weighty, yet with curiously tender inflections in it when he addressed
Patsy.

Patsy does not know herself how she first began to confide in this man.
Perhaps she had a severe dose of home-sickness one day, and the Galloway
voice, speaking broadly as they talked at Glenanmays, as Jean and
Diarmid and Fergus and Agnew spoke, made her do it. For Miss Aline spoke
dainty old lady Scots, but without the broad accent of the moors, which
was not at all the same thing to Patsy.

The shrewd old man divined a good deal too. Patsy did not care to talk
about anything but the Valleys. She rejected topic after topic and
returned to the Free Trade, the "running" of cargoes, the lads who had
beaten the press-gang, and their chief, Stair Garland.

Kennedy tried her once or twice on