"Good-bye for the present."
"And don't go and pack up and flee from gossip," said Rowena; "for you get that everywhere. It's best to have a thick skin and ignore it. My love to Mysie, and don't vent your anger upon her."
"You do think me a brute!"
"No, only a helpless man."
Rowena was left with the last word. Shags immediately received her confidence when the General was gone.
"The fair falcon is beaten, Shags! And I'm enough of a heathen still to rejoice in her discomfiture. I hate humbug and insincerity. Thank goodness Mysie will escape out of her clutches. What a storm in a tea-cup! But I shall miss his visits if he goes. He wants a wife to laugh at him and rub off his angles—to give him a little petting, and make him realize that he is a very human man, and not a cast-iron statue to be worshipped, but never to be approached at close quarters! I wish he had a little more humour! I wonder if he would be boring if one lived with him!"
She was rather surprised in two days' time to get a letter from General Macdonald, the first that she had ever received.
"DEAR MISS ARBUTHNOT,—"
"I thought you would like to know how things are going with us. I quite accidentally met Miss Falconer out the other day. She had called at the house for a book of hers, and we met as she was returning to the Grants. I suppose I ought to be glad the matter has been taken out of my hands. She began to talk about Mysie at once, then said that her people wanted her to give up teaching—that Lady Grant did not like her living alone, and was trying to persuade her to leave the cottage and come and stay with them for a long visit. I told her I quite agreed with Lady Grant, and that I could easily make other plans for Mysie. It seemed so easy—the whole thing—that I was surprised when she seemed so disconcerted; said she was afraid I was not satisfied with her. I told her I thought she had done wonders with Mysie, and so she has in the way of teaching her manners and self-control. We parted friends, I hope. I told her I should be sending Mysie to school."
"Mysie herself is a radiant piece of goods at present. I suppose she looks forward to a long holiday, but she does not seem to have liked Miss Falconer. I cannot fathom the reason of her dislike. I am having an old pal of mine to stay for a fortnight's shooting. May I bring him over to see you one day?"
"Yours,"
"HUGH MACDONALD."
A few days after this Rowena was rather surprised to get a visit from Miss Falconer. She arrived in the Grants' car.
"I took the opportunity of coming to see you," Miss Falconer explained, "as Lady Grant wanted to call upon the Macintoshes at Abertarlie. It will be a good-bye visit. I am leaving this part. I only meant to stay in my cottage for the summer, and of course I never meant to take up my job of teaching beyond that time, though the dear general seemed to think that I was a fixture here. I flatter myself that even in these couple of months I have made an impression upon his wild little tomboy. She has brains. It is a pity they are not going to be developed in the right way."