'No, no; she's all right,' said Barbara Fraser; 'and mother thinks the world of her. If we left, girls, I don't know what father and mother would say. They've always been wild to get us into a proper Scottish school.'
'How are we to light the fire?' whispered Leucha. 'Do you know how it's done, Dorothy?'
'Not I. Who 's that singing?'
There was a wonderfully sweet contralto voice sounding from the cosy depths of the Summer Parlour. The words the girl sang were as follows:
'The great Ardshiel, he gaed before,
He gart the cannons and guns to roar.
'Whisper now, lassies. Do you not know that "the oak shall go over the myrtle yet"? We will settle some of the poor English girls yet. All the same, I like the really nice English girls ever so well. They are so bonnie and so gentle, like my own sweet sister Jasmine. Where could you see her like anywhere? And there is my own kinsman, the Duke of Ardshiel! Ah! but I love him well!'
The voice was undoubtedly the voice of Hollyhock, who, without rhyme or reason, had lit a great fire in the old grate, and was comfortably established there, with her four sisters and a number of Scots and English girls scattered round.
These young people were seated round the roaring fire, and Holly, with her black locks and great glowing black eyes, was the centre of an animated group. She was about to expand her views on the nice and not-nice English girls, when in rushed Leucha and her friends.
'You clear out of this,' she said.
'Clear?' said Hollyhock. 'What is clear?'