The latter could scarcely be, as Ellinor had so many personal attractions, her long lashes imparted such softness to her dark hazel eyes, and the contour of her head and neck seemed so graceful and ladylike as Sir Redmond stooped over her, and complimented her artistic efforts.
Meanwhile Jack, with his hair bristling up, and his bandy legs planted firmly on the carpet, was growling, snarling, and showing such manifestations of making his tusks acquainted with the baronet's calves or ankles, that he had to be ignominiously taken out of the room by Elspat.
'Dogs have strange instincts and antipathies,' said Dr. Wodrow, rather unluckily, and unaware of all his words implied. 'Ah,' he added, as Ellinor displayed one of her drawings, 'that is the Holy Hill of Forteviot, and these stones you see depicted among the turf possess a curious legend—the story of a miller's daughter who married a king—a story you must get Miss Wellwood to tell you one of these days. And so you have given old Elspat a home here, Mary,' he added, smoothing her bright hair with his hand, as he had been wont to do when she was a child, caressingly.
'Yes, for Ellinor and I both love the poor old creature.'
'You are one after God's own heart, Mary,' said the minister, his grey eyes kindling as he spoke.
'We have never forgotten the strange weird dream—if dream it was—she had in the winter night before dear papa died.'
'And this dream?' said Captain Colville, inquiringly, and regarding the girl's face with genuine interest.
'Was a waking one—tell him, Mary,' said Dr. Wodrow, seeing that she hesitated to speak of such things to an utter stranger.
'When papa was on his death-bed,' said she, 'the winter snow covered all the hills; it lay deep in the glen there, and even the great cascade at the Linn hung frozen like a giant's beard in mid-air. About the solemn gloaming time Elspat saw from her cottage window a strange, dim, flickering light leave our house here, and proceed slowly towards the village church, by a line where no road lies, and pass through the churchyard wall at a place where no gates open, and then, at a certain point, it vanished! At that precise time papa died, and when the funeral day came—a day never to be forgotten by us—the roads were so deep with snow that the procession took the way traversed by the light, and, as the gates were buried deep, the wall was crossed at the point indicated by the light, and the grave was found to have been dug where the light vanished.'
Mary's gentle voice broke as she told this little story, and whatever Colville thought of it, though a town-bred Scotsman, no unbelief was traceable in his face.