l Nancy drew them to my attention.

"Ye can't go to Alton on Thursday, Jock," she said.

"Why?" I inquired.

"'Tis your day for discharging Huey," she answered with a laugh, making
up a funny face at me.

I would not set any one to thinking that I had a lack of affection for
my old serving-man, for I had seen his old age provided against in a
manner to prove my care; but I knew that he loved me in spite of my
conduct rather than because of it, and with no hope whatever of my
eternal salvation.

The plans for our Irish trip were being discussed one day when Nancy
found him weeping bitterly over the silver he was counting, when he
told her that his grief came from fear lest we should get murdered or
kidnapped in that strange country without him to look after us, and
that the whole matter was taking the very life out of him.

The little one's heart was so touched by his sorrow and his age that
she came back to Sandy and me with tears in her eyes, saying that if
Huey couldn't go she would stay at home herself.

As he was too old and broken to travel with safety to himself, and as
Nancy remained fixed as death, the Irish trip was not taken; by which,
but for the whim of this old serving-man, we might have been from
Scotland and avoided the bitter trouble which began at the Allisons'
rout given in honor of the home-coming of Danvers and his bride.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ALLISONS' BALL AND THAT WHICH FOLLOWED IT

As I have written, save for Huey MacGrath, we should have been away
from Scotland at the time of the Allisons' ball, and by this absence
should have missed the visit of the Duke of Borthwicke concerning the
Light-House Commission, which fell at the same time.

His grace's letter to Nancy just previous to this return was filled
with a droll cataloguing of all the good deeds which he was doing, in
the manner of an exact invoice.

"I hope you will not be forgetting any of these, not even the
smallest," he concluded this epistle, "for it is because of these I am
going to ask you a favor, a great favor--the greatest favor on earth."

For the two or three days before this merrymaking Nancy was in a
strange mood, of which I could make nothing, her gaiety being more
pronouncedly gay, and her silences continuing longer than I had ever
noted them. She spent much of her time in her own room, trying on and
having refitted a wonderful gown which Lunardi had sent up from London
by special carrier the week before.