was the scene of a character common on the remote west coast of Sutherland.
‘Alured is no maniac for fishing, luckily,’ Lady Bude was saying. ‘To-day he is cat-hunting.’
‘I regret it,’ said Merton; ‘I profess myself the friend of cats.’
‘He is only trying to photograph a wild cat at home in the hills; they are very scarce.’
‘In fact he is Jones Harvey, the naturalist again, for the nonce, not the sportsman,’ said Merton.
‘It was as Jones Harvey that he—’ said Lady Bude, and, blushing, stopped.
‘That he grasped the skirts of happy chance,’ said Merton.
‘Why don’t you grasp the skirts, Mr. Merton?’ asked Lady Bude. ‘Chance, or rather Lady Fortune, who wears the skirts, would, I think, be happy to have them grasped.’
‘Whose skirts do you allude to?’
‘The skirts, short enough in the Highlands, of Miss Macrae,’ said Lady Bude; ‘she is a nice girl, and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, and, after all, there are worse things than millions.’