A blue-eyed, placid woman, with abundant fair hair of the sort which hardly ever turns grey, came forward to receive Patsy. The drawing-room of Hanover Lodge was long, and the windows looked on the river. Patsy flitted forward with her usual lightness. She was not in the least intimidated, but only regarded with immense interest the woman who had loved her Uncle Julian and was still his faithful friend.
Patsy had had it in her mind to kiss the hand of the Princess, but she, divining her intention, caught the girl in her arms and pressed her close, kissing her on the cheek and forehead after some foreign fashion.
"You have come from Julian," she murmured, "you are very like him—the daughter of his only sister. I shall love you well!"
"And this is my father!" said Patsy, who as usual took command of the situation, as soon as there was a man anywhere about to be told what to do. "Come forward, father!"
But though the laird of Cairn Ferris was only a country gentleman who had seldom left the bounds even of his parish, he was come of good blood and had been well brought up. He kneeled on one knee to kiss her hand, perhaps not with the courtly grace of the ex-ambassador, his brother-in-law, but still with a dignity which was altogether manly.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Ferris of Cairn Ferris," said the Princess Elsa. "I have never seen your beautiful land, but the best and wisest men I have known have belonged to your nation—the courtliest and truest gentlemen, both with sword and tongue."
She was silent a moment, and both Patsy Ferris and her father understood that she was thinking of Julian Wemyss. Then she added very thoughtfully, "I have spent a great part of my life among men who do not speak the truth to women, and would think themselves shamed if they did. Therefore I have learned how to cherish men of their word, and these I have found among men of your nation."
"I fear me, your Highness," said Adam, smiling darkly, "that I could not give my countrymen so wholesale a certificate for truth-speaking; but I can also promise you that our Patsy will not lower your opinion of her nation in that respect. Rather she speaks before she thinks, this maid, and so gets herself and other people into much trouble."
Adam remained at Hanover Lodge for lunch, a meal which his hostess called breakfast, and which was served in the continental fashion, every dish separate. The well-styled domestics, in their black liveries on which the device of the galloping horse stood out on each side of the collar, moved noiselessly about, seeming to fade away and leave the room empty when there was no need for their presence, and yet to be behind everybody's chair at the right moment. He bethought him of his own honest James and William who often had scarcely time to discard the gardening clogs or lay down the wood-splitting axe in order to pull on their livery coats, and so began to understand that there were degrees of perfection in servitude.
Certainly Patsy would learn many things here, but would she ever come back to be just his own wild, frank, helter-skelter maid? He doubted it. And it was no comfort to him to reflect that it was for that very purpose he was letting her go, that she might be under the care of this great lady. Well, his brother-in-law must know what was best, certainly, and the Princess—Julian's Princess—appeared to take very well to Patsy. But oh, Cairn Ferris and the Abbey Burnfoot would be lonely places without her. And the lads who had escorted her like a queen! Clearly it was better that she should not run altogether wild, being what she was and the favour of men so easy to be won. But—it was hard, also, for he was a lonely man. And it was with a very heavy heart that Adam Ferris took leave of his daughter.