f
Dunvegan. May I introduce my friend, James MacDonald of Sleat. My own
name is James Stuart, and for a time we are your father's guests at
Dunvegan."

The young lady with inimitable grace bowed her queenly head to each of
them in turn. The men slipped their swords quietly back into their
scabbards.

"I give you good welcome to Dunvegan," said the girl. "I regret that
I do not speak fair the English."

"Indeed, my lady," rejoined the susceptible king, "it is the most
charming English I ever heard."

The fair stranger laughed in low and most melodious cadence, like a
distant cathedral's chime falling on the evening air.

"I am thinking you will be flattering me," she said, "but I know my
English is not good, for there are few in these parts that I can speak
to in it."

"I shall be delighted to be your teacher," replied the king with his
most courteous intonation. He knew from experience that any offer of
tutorship from him had always proved exceedingly acceptable to the
more dainty sex, and this knowledge gave him unbounded confidence
while it augmented his natural self-esteem.

"It is perhaps that you already speak the Gaelic?" suggested the young
woman.

"Alas! no madam. But I should be overjoyed to learn and there, it
may be, you will accept me in the part of pupil. You will find me a
devoted and most obedient scholar. I am in a way what you might call a
poet, and I am told on every hand that Gaelic is the proper medium for
that art."

A puzzled expression troubled the face of the girl as she endeavoured
to follow the communication addressed to her, but MacDonald sprang
somewhat eagerly to the rescue, and delivered a long harangue in her
native language. Her delight was instant, the cloud on her brow
disappearing as if by magic under the genial influence of the
accustomed converse. The king's physiognomy also underwent a change
but the transformation was not so pleasing as that which had illumined
the countenance of the girl. His majesty distinctly scowled at the
intrepid subject who had so impetuously intervened, but the pair paid
slight attention to him, conversing amiably together, much to their
mutual pleasure.

Now, it is nowhere considered polite to use a language not understood
by some one person in the party. This fact MacDonald knew perfectly
well, and he doubtless would have acted differently if he had taken
the time to think, but he had become so engrossed by the beauty of the
lady, that, fo