"Well, I'm wet enough, to be sure. But you should see what a wonderful little specimen of the aborigines I've fished up, Blanchie. Come along, and I'll tell you the tale while I warm myself."
Blanche followed into the library with some curiosity. She had rather hazy ideas of what the "aborigines" might mean, but she concluded that it must be some sort of trout taken from the river during the storm.
The Major had returned home some time ago, and was comfortably seated in his arm-chair by the library fire, so Blanche had to wait, with as much patience as she could muster, till Mr. Clifford explained what had detained him. The other gentlemen had gone on to see the Linn, he said, but as he wanted to have some fishing next day, he thought it would be well to see the keeper, and arrange the matter before returning home.
"I had been to the kennels once before," continued Mr. Clifford, "and knew that the keeper lived not far from them. But I had no end of bother in finding the place, though there it was suspended above me all the while. I set out to go down the hill again, giving up the search in despair, when I noticed that smoke came from a wretched shell of a hut, perched on the corner of a crag. And this turned out to be Dingwall's abode. I really wonder his Grace doesn't house his tenants better."
"But what about the creature you fished up, papa?" asked Blanche, fearing that the conversation was going take too abstract a turn. "You promised to tell me, you know."
"Ah! Blanche, I see you're all eyes and ears. Well, I'm just coming to that now. I knocked at the door of this miserable erection, but no answer came; and, as it was pouring rain, I did not feel inclined to wait long, so I lifted the latch and looked in. Dingwall evidently was not at home. Indeed, I should say he was quite as comfortable among the heather as at his own fireside, in the circumstances. The rain was dropping in from the roof in all directions, and it was evidently its habit to do so, for it seemed to have excavated reservoirs for itself along the earthen floor. The only soul in the hut was a wretched atom of a girl, who, nothing daunted by this damp state of matters, was splashing contentedly through the wet floor with her little bare feet, trying to spoon away the water in the pools. Such a funny little thing it was. You should have seen her, Blanchie, as she stood looking at me, with her great eyes that peeped out from a tangled mass of black locks. But I daresay I looked rather an alarming apparition in my waterproof and umbrella, which I had the prudence to keep over my head. She looked terrified for a moment, but she did not forget to make her rags touch the soaking floor in a low curtsey, and offered in the sweetest voice to run for her father, who was 'watchin' the spate,' she said. You should have seen her, Blanchie; it would have quite suited your love for the sensational."
The portrait was photographic; Blanche's heart began to beat, for she felt certain that she had seen her.
"O papa! do tell me, did she really go away to the river to look for her father? Do tell me, please," said Blanche, in eager tones.
"Well, seeing that she didn't seem to mind the weather, and wasn't likely to catch cold, I thought I might as well bring her here for a little, since her father was not at home, and put her under old Worthy's care, to be warmed and fed and generally comforted. I couldn't get her to open her mouth again, but she followed me down the hill on my invitation."
"O papa! you don't mean to say that she is with Mrs. Worthy now?" and without waiting for a reply, off Blanche bounded in search of the housekeeper's room. And there, in front of a bright fire, seated in a comfortable arm-chair, looking serenely happy in the midst of such unwonted comforts, sat Morag.