unt, whom I just
mustered courage to look at. "You'll have to make your best bow and a
very grand speech, to return thanks for such an honour."

"Master didn't expect you so soon, sir," proceeded George; "he thought
you'd be coming by the next train; that's how it is that Master Willie
was down here."

"Then I think the best thing we can do with Master Willie is to carry
him up to the house with us," said my uncle. And accordingly I was
lifted over from my step into the midst of the party in the carriage,
and seated down between my uncle and aunt.

The coachman was compelled to rein in the horses a minute longer, whilst
they all looked at and admired the arch, and then we bowled off rapidly
up the avenue. I sometimes think we remember our life in pictures:
certainly the very frontispiece of my acquaintance with my cousin Aleck
always is, and will be, a distinct mind's eye picture of that party in
the carriage, with myself in their midst.

Uncle Gordon sitting in the right hand corner with his arm round me,
keeping me very close to himself, so that I might not crowd my aunt, who
was leaning back on the other side of me, as though weary with the long
journey. Opposite my uncle my aunt's maid, with a green bonnet decorated
with a bow of red velvet of angular construction in the centre of the
front, to which the parting of her hair seemed to lead up like a broad
white road; she was grasping, as though her life depended upon her
keeping them safely, a sort of family fagot of umbrellas in one hand,
whilst with the other she kept a leather-covered dressing-case steady on
her lap. In the fourth corner was my cousin, in full Highland kilt, such
as I had hitherto seen only in toy-books of the costumes of all nations
or other pictures, and which inspired me with a wonderful amount of
curiosity. Lastly, myself in blue and white sailor's dress, looking, no
doubt, as if I had been captured from a man-of-war; conscious of tumbled
hair, and doubtful hands, and retribution in store for me in the shape
of a talking-to from nurse, who had still unlimited jurisdiction over my
wardrobe, for having been surprised in a state she would designate as
"not fit to be seen."

Aleck and I found our eyes wandering to each other momentarily as we
drove along. When they met, we took them off again, and pretended to
look out at opposite sides of the carriage; but this happened so often,
that at last we both laughed, and--the ice broke. I was quite