"And this still Loch Leven," he said at length, and without the least blush on his face, "with the Glencoe mountains at the end of it. I have often heard say was as picturesque a loch as any in Scotland, on a gloomy day like this. Gloomy I call it, but ye see there are fine silver glints among the mist; and—and, in fact, there's a friend of mine has often been wishing to have a water-colour sketch of it. If ye had time, Miss Mary, to make a bit drawing from the deck of the yacht, ye might name your own price—just name your own price. I will buy it for him."
A friend! Mary Avon knew very well who the friend was.
"I should be afraid, sir," said she, laughing, "to meddle with anything about Glencoe."
"Toots! toots!" said he; "ye have not enough confidence. I know twenty young men in Edinburgh and Glasgow who have painted every bit of Glencoe, from the bridge to the King's House inn, and not one of them able to come near ye. Mind, I'm looking forward to showing your pictures to Tom Galbraith; I'm thinking he'll stare!"
The Laird chuckled again.
"Oh, ay! he does not know what a formidable rival has come from the south; I'm thinking he'll stare when he comes to Denny-mains to meet ye. Howard, what's that down there?"
The Laird had caught sight of a pink flower on the side of a steep little ravine, leading down to the shore.
"Oh, I don't want it; I don't want it!" Mary Avon cried.
But the Laird was obdurate. His nephew had to go scrambling down through the alders and rowan-trees and wet bracken to get this bit of pink crane's-bill for Miss Avon's bouquet. And of course she was much pleased; and thanked him very prettily; and was it catch-fly, or herb robert, or what was it?
Then out of sheer common courtesy she had to turn to Angus Sutherland.