'There's Lady Stuart would have ye stay with them at Brighton for a few weeks; but your mother seems to think you should go amongst them as a kind of Mezzofanti—it's precious little of that there's about Sir Alexander, as I know well. However, if you're not to go to them until you are polished out of all human shape and likeness, I suppose I must say nothing——'
'But I would rather go and stay with Agatha, father,' the girl said.
He looked at her again.
'Well,' said he, 'I do think something must be done. It would be a fine thing for you—you of all creatures in the world—to sink into a hopeless anæmic condition. Lassie, where's that eldritch laugh o' yours gone to? And I see you go dawdling along the road—you that could beat a young roedeer if you were to try. Glasgow?—well, I'll see what your mother says.'
'Thank you, father,' she said, but she did not leave at once. 'I think I heard you say that Mr. Blair was going south on Monday,' she timidly suggested.
This Mr. Blair was a U.P. minister from Glasgow, who was taking a well-earned holiday up at Tongue—fishing in the various lochs in that neighbourhood—and who was known to the Douglases.
'You're in a deuce of a hurry, Miss,' her father said, but good-naturedly enough. 'You mean you could go to Glasgow under his escort?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I will see what your mother says—I suppose she will be for making a fuss over the necessary preparations.'
But this promise and half permission had instantly brought to the girl a kind of frail and wandering joy and hope; and there was a brief smile on her face as she said—