It was somewhat strange that Mrs. Mackenzie never seemed to take to her daughter, who was about five years older than Donald her boy—Johnnie's father. Her whole life and love seemed bound up in her son.
Under the plea of giving her the best education it was possible to obtain, the girl was sent to a school in Edinburgh. There she lived and grew up, only coming home at holiday-time.
It was at Edinburgh, too, that Flora met Fred Morgan, the son of the wealthy ship-broker. Flora, of course, asked her mother's consent to marry Fred—meaning to marry him, anyhow, for the Mackenzies had always been a self-willed race.
The letter bearing the mother's reply came in due course.
"Oh, certainly, my dear."
That was the gist of it when shorn of its studied and stately verbiage.
At the same time that Sambo, alias Snowball, posted this letter, he dropped one into the box for Mr. Dawson, the family solicitor.
Mr. Dawson went through at once to Drumglen. He arrived early in the afternoon.
But "milady" was as politely reticent as a Mohawk Indian. She said nothing about business that day.
He dined in state—with Snowball behind his high-backed chair, arrayed in a crimson waistcoat and immaculate coat and neckerchief.