see, my sister is firmly convinced that there is deadly
danger in wet feet, and one of her conditions is that Milly is not to be
allowed to wet her feet. Now you know it is not easy for a Londoner to
understand the difficulty of keeping one's feet dry while skipping over
the mountains and peat-hags of the Western Isles."

"From which I conclude that Mrs Moss is a Londoner," returned Barret,
with a laugh.

"She is. Although a Gordon, and born in the Argyll Highlands, she was
sent to school in London, where she was married at the age of seventeen,
and has lived there ever since. Her husband is dead, and nothing that I
have been able to say has yet tempted her to pay me a visit. She
regards my home here as a wild, uninhabitable region, though she has
never seen it, and besides, is getting too old and feeble to venture, as
she says, on a long voyage. Certes, she is not yet feeble in mind,
whatever she may be in body; but she's a good, amiable, affectionate
woman, and I have no fault to find with her, except in regard to her
severe conditions about Milly, and her anxiety to get her home again.
After all, it is not to be wondered at, for Milly is her only child; and
I am quite sure if I had not gone to London, and made all sorts of
promises to be extremely careful of Milly and personally take her home
again, she never would have let her come at all. See, there is one of
Milly's favourite views," said the laird, pulling up, and pointing with
his whip to the scene in front, where a range of purple hills formed a
fine background to the loch, with its foreground of tangle-covered
stones; "she revels in depicting that sort of thing."

Barret, after expressing his thorough approval of the young girl's taste
in the matter of scenery, asked if Milly's delicate health was the cause
of her mother's anxiety.

"Delicate health!" exclaimed the laird. "Why, man, sylph-like though
she appears, she has got the health of an Amazon. No, no, there's
nothing wrong with my niece, save in the imagination of my sister. We
will stop at this cottage for a few minutes. I want to see one of my
men, who is not very well."

He pulled up at the door of a little stone hut by the roadside, which
possessed only one small window and one chimney, the top of which
consisted of an old cask, with the two ends knocked out. A bare-legged
boy ran out of the hut to hold the horse.

"Is your brother better to-day?" asked the laird.

"No, sir; he's