."

"My father has been telling tales--oh, shame of him!" cried Patsy,
reddening. "I said that I would run away with you, if you were not my
uncle, but then I did not know about--"

She stopped suddenly. Her tongue had betrayed her.

"About what? Out with it," said Julian.

"About the princess!" Patsy answered, her eyes in his.

"Who has been listening to gossip now?" said Julian Wemyss.

"I--I," cried Patsy, "and I would give all I have to know what is true
and what is clatter of the country."

"There is little to hide," said Julian quietly, looking past his niece
out of the windows giving on the sea; "but that little is not my own to
tell. If some day I am at liberty to speak, I promise that little Patsy
Ferris shall be the first to hear."

Then he patted her head reproachfully. "Little Curiosity," he said with
tenderness, "it is not good for girls to be told everything. Old fellows
like me ought to know, so as to keep their wards out of mischief. The
world is a strange and dangerous place, full of traps and quicksands,
and for this reason see that you always come to me with your troubles.
Do not bother Adam Ferris with them. He has never ventured beyond the
Plainstones of Dumfries on a cattle-fair day. Besides many women have
told me their sorrows."

"Yes," promised Patsy. "I don't know about princesses, but I do know
that many girls must have loved you, Uncle Julian, for that is the
reason you are so sweet to me now!"

* * * * *

Julian's chief ally in the county was Miss Aline Minto of Balmacminto,
who lived at Ladykirk. She was wealthy, but had been so shy of men that
she had escaped numberless wooers, sorely enamoured of the Balmacminto
estates, and now at the age of forty-five showed the prettiest fringes
of white curls in the world, a complexion of seventeen, and something so
trustful and rare in the way of brown eyes that Raeburn, at the height
of his fame, had painted her for the mere love of winsomeness in growing
old.

She knew Julian's reputation and at first had kept out of his way. But
when once she met him, the two had become comrades on the spot. Miss
Aline saw that this man had no designs either upon her or upon the
estates. A kindly aloofness from all such mean projects, an ease and
grace that spoke of worlds quite unrealized by Miss Aline, somehow urged
her to confide in him. In a month he had become indispensable. Miss
Aline asked his advice and called