She did not greatly care for London life, and she often wondered a little at her cousins' enthusiasm over balls and routs, and all the treadmill of fashionable society. They were so excited over their Court frocks that their dreams were haunted by chiffons and festoons of lace and Court trains hung from slender shoulders.
Isla indeed was far too grave for her years. She had been cheated of her youth. Even she herself did not know what possibilities for frivolity and fun her nature held, nor how gay she could have been had not care, like a gaunt spectre, walked so long by her side.
Her discomfort about Malcolm was keen this morning. Even the gracious influence of the sun could not altogether banish it. But it helped, and her face looked very sweet under the brim of her simple hat, and more than one pair of eyes filled with admiration as she passed.
She left the park at the Marble Arch, crossed the road, and made her way along the Edgeware Road to Cromar Street, where Mrs. Fraser lived. It was not her first visit, and Agnes having been apprised of her coming, was on the doorstep to welcome her.
"There ye are, Miss Isla--a sight for sair een! I have been so put about wi' joy all this morning that I have not been able to do my work. How are you, and how is all at dear Achree?"
"So, so, Agnes," answered Isla with a smile as she grasped the faithful servant's hand and passed across her hospitable threshold. "You look wonderfully well. I hope that Fraser is too, and the children, and that everything is going right with you?"
Isla possessed to the full the faculty of binding those who served her to her with hooks of steel, she was so sweetly kind and interested in everything concerning them. Yet she held their respect, and no servant, even the least satisfactory, had ever been known to presume in the smallest degree upon any kindness shown.
She sat down in Agnes Fraser's ugly, heavy dining-room, which reeked of stale tobacco smoke, but which represented the greater part of her living, being let, with bedroom accommodation, to two permanencies who paid her well. And there Isla listened to the whole recital of the good woman's affairs. It occurred to Agnes only after Isla had gone, at the end of an hour's time, that she had really heard very little about Achree.
As Isla had risen to depart, she had said with a smile: "If you are coming to the glen this summer, Agnes, you will have a longer walk to get to us. We have gone to live at Creagh for the season, and Achree is let to some Americans."
Agnes looked the dismay she felt, but abstained from comment and only remarked that she hoped they had made Creagh comfortable, and that they would not find it too dull.