Lady Macleod started.
"How long do you propose this visit should last?" she said.
"Oh, I don't know," he said, hastily. "But you know, mother, you would not hurry your guests; for I am sure you would be as proud as any one to show them that we had things worth seeing. We should take her to the cathedral at Iona on some moonlight night; and then some day we could go out to the Dubh Artach lighthouse—and you know how the men are delighted to see a new face—"
"You would never think of that, Keith," his cousin said. "Do you think a London young lady would have the courage to be swung on to the rocks and to climb up all those steps outside?"
"She has the courage for that or for anything," said he. "And then, you know, she would be greatly interested in the clouds of puffins and the skarts behind Staffa, and we would take her to the great caves in the cliffs at Gribun; and I have no doubt she would like to go out to one of the uninhabited islands."
Lady Macleod had preserved a stern silence. When she had so far yielded as to promise to ask those two strangers to come to Castle Dare on their round of the Western Islands, she had taken it for granted that their visit would necessarily be of the briefest; but the projects of which Keith Macleod now spoke seemed to suggest something like a summer passed at Dare. And he went on talking in this strain, nervously delighted with the pictures that each promised excursion called up. Miss White would be charmed with this, and delighted with that. Janet would find her so pleasant a companion; the mother would be inclined to pet her at first sight.
"She is already anxious to make your acquaintance mother," said he to the proud old dame who sat there ominously silent. "And she could think of no other message to send you than this—it belonged to her mother."
He opened the little package—of old lace, or something of that kind—and handed it to his mother; and at the same time, his impetuosity carrying him on, he said that perhaps, the mother would write now and propose the visit in the summer.
At this Lady Macleod's surprise overcame her reserve.
"You must be mad, Keith! To write in the middle of winter and send an invitation for the summer! And really the whole thing is so extraordinary—a present coming to me from an absolute stranger—- and that stranger an actress who is quite unknown to any one I know—"