"It would not be the same at all," said Vivien decidedly. "What you want is to shut the door upon the outside world and forget all about us, to have only your own people about you and to have to consider nobody but them. It is only in this way that my mother will arrange it. I am sure that you will find that this is the best arrangement?"
"It is a great thing for you to do," said Isla breathlessly. "I have never heard or known of anybody who would think of a thing so beautiful."
"Oh, nonsense. There are many far more beautiful things done in the world every day, and nobody hears of them. It will cost us nothing, you see. And, moreover, it is the right thing to do. It would be clearly wrong for the Chief of the Mackinnons to be carried to his last rest from this lonely and inaccessible place, beautiful though it is. He ought to be--he must be, borne from the house of his fathers."
"Yes, yes," said Isla, with a little sob in her voice. "To think that you feel like that, that--you understand everything! Now, I'm so very glad that you have Achree."
Her hardness had melted and the desperate hunted look had gone from her eyes. Once more she was alert, full of affairs, thinking of all there was to do and ready for all emergencies.
As she drove down Glenogle beside the smart groom on the front seat of the dogcart her face did not once lose its uplifted look.
Her eyes swam in tears as Vivien and she swept through the familiar gates of Achree.
"Tell me, dear Mrs. Rodney Payne, was it your mother her own self, who thought of this--this beautiful thing?"
"No, my dear," answered Vivien quietly, "it was my brother. He is like that. He thinks always of the thing that will make most people happy and of how to do it in the happiest way."
"I thought he was like that when he was up at Creagh with me to-day," said Isla simply. "What it must be to have a brother like that--a brother who thinks of others first!"