ve for that
shot."

Whereupon Mr. Ogilvie stopped and modestly hinted that he would accept
of at least a moiety of the proffered reward.

"Do you know, Hamish," said he, "that it is the greatest comfort in the
world to get wet right through, for you know you can't be worse, and it
gives you no trouble."

"And a whole glass will do you no harm, sir," shrewdly observed Hamish.

"Not in the clouds."

"The what, sir?"

"The clouds. Don't you consider we are going shooting through clouds?"

"There will be a snipe or two down here, sir," said Hamish, moving on;
for he could not understand conundrums, especially conundrums in
English.

The day remained of this moist character to the end; but they had plenty
of sport, and they had a heavy bag on their return to Castle Dare.
Macleod was rather silent on the way home. Ogilvie was still at a loss
to know why his friend should have taken this sudden dislike to living
in a place he had lived in all his life. Nor could he understand why
Macleod should have deliberately surrendered to him the chance of
bagging the brace of grouse that got up by the side of the road. It was
scarcely, he considered, within the possibilities of human nature.

CHAPTER XV.

A CONFESSION.

And once again the big dining-hall of Castle Dare was ablaze with
candles; and Janet was there, gravely listening to the garrulous talk of
the boy-officer; and Keith Macleod, in his dress tartan; and the
noble-looking old lady at the head of the table, who more than once
expressed to her guest, in that sweetly modulated and gracious voice of
hers, how sorry she was he had encountered so bad a day for the first
day of his visit.

"It is different with Keith," said she, "for he is used to be out in all
weathers. He has been brought up to live out of doors."

"But you know, auntie," said Janet Macleod, "a soldier is much of the
same thing. Did you ever hear of a soldier with an umbrella?"

"All I know is," remarked Mr. Ogilvie--who, in his smart evening dress,
and with his face flashed into a rosy warmth after the cold and the wet,
did not look particularly miserable--"that I don't remember ever
enjoying myself so much in one day. But the fact is, Lady Macleod, your
son gave me all the shooting; and Hamish was sounding my praises all day
long, so that I almost got to think I could shoot the birds without
putting up the gun at all; and when I made a frightful bad miss,
everybody declared the bird wa