She pronounced the last word without the guttural, so that it sounded like Akree.
"I asked about it at the hotel," the lady continued. "and they directed me along this road. But it seems a good bit away. Is it much farther off?"
"The Lodge gates are half a mile farther on," Isla answered. "Then there is the avenue to the house and that is rather long."
"I may as well go on, now I have come so far, but if I'd known how far off it was I would have hired a trap of some kind."
She leaned against the parapet of the bridge in a quite friendly fashion, as if ready to talk; and Isla hating herself intensely for lingering, yet felt impelled to do so, and even to put a question to the stranger concerning her business at Achree.
"I suppose that it is the American tenants you have come to see? They have been in Achree for about six months now."
The lady shook her head.
"No. I don't know that I've come to see anybody in particular, but I'm interested in the place through a friend of mine. I didn't know there were Americans in it. I thought it belonged to a family called Mackinnon."
"They are the owners, but it is let, as most of the big places are in these days."
"I see. And where are the Mackinnons? Mr. Mackinnon chiefly? He is what you call the laird now, isn't he? I read about his father's death in the newspapers, and what a fuss they made about it! Is he here just now?"