"He must have gone away in the dark to get that boat for us," said she, musingly. "Poor fellow, how very generous and kind he is! Sometimes—shall I make the confession, pappy?—I wish he had picked out some one who could better have returned his warmth of feeling."
She called it a confession; but it was a question. And her father answered more bluntly than she had quite expected.
"I am not much of an authority on such points," said he, with a dry smile; "but I should have said, Gerty, that you have not been quite so effusive towards Sir Keith Macleod as some young ladies would have been on meeting their sweetheart after a long absence."
The pale face flushed, and she answered, hastily,
"But you know, papa, when you are knocked about from one boat to another, and expecting to be ill one minute and drowned the next, you don't have your temper improved, do you? And then perhaps you have been expecting a little too much romance?—and you find your Highland chieftain handing down loaves, with all the people in the steamer staring at him. But I really mean to make it up to him, papa, if I could only get settled down for a day or two and get into my own ways. Oh dear me!—this sun—it is too awfully dreadful! When I appear before Mr. Lemuel again, I shall be a mulatto!"
And as they walked along the burning sands, with the waves monotonously breaking, the white-sailed yacht came nearer and more near; and, indeed, the old Umpire, broad-beamed and heavy as she was, looked quite stately and swanlike as she came over the blue water. And they saw the gig lowered; and the four oars keeping rhythmical time; and presently they could make out the browned and glad face of Macleod.
"Why did you take so much trouble?" said she to him—and she took his hand in a very kind way as he stepped on shore. "We could very well have gone back in the boat."
"Oh, but I want to take you round by Loch Tua," said he, looking with great gratitude into those friendly eyes. "And it was no trouble at all. And will you step into the gig now?"
He took her hand and guided her along the rocks until she reached the boat; and he assisted her father too. Then they pushed off, and it was with a good swing the men sent the boat through the lapping waves. And here was Hamish standing by the gangway to receive them; and he was gravely respectful to the stranger lady, as he assisted her to get up the small wooden steps; but there was no light of welcome in the keen gray eyes. He quickly turned away from her to give his orders; for Hamish was on this occasion skipper, and had donned a smart suit of blue with brass buttons. Perhaps he would have been prouder of his buttons, and of himself, and of the yacht he had sailed for so many years, if it had been any other than Gertrude White who had now stepped on board.
But, on the other hand, Miss White was quite charmed with this shapely vessel and all its contents. If the frugal ways and commonplace duties and conversation of Castle Dare had somewhat disappointed her, and had seemed to her not quite in accordance with the heroic traditions of the clans, here, at least, was something which she could recognize as befitting her notion of the name and position of Sir Keith Macleod. Surely it must be with a certain masterful sense of possession that he would stand on those white decks, independent of all the world besides, with those sinewy, sun-browned, handsome fellows ready to go anywhere with him at his bidding? It is true that Macleod, in showing her over the yacht, seemed to know far too much about tinned meats; and he exhibited with some pride a cunning device for the stowage of soda-water; and he even went the length of explaining to her the capacities of the linen-chest; but then she could not fail to see that, in his eagerness to interest and amuse her, he was as garrulous as a schoolboy showing to his companion a new toy. Miss White sat down in the saloon; and Macleod, who had but little experience in attending on ladies, and knew of but one thing that it was proper to recommend, said,—