llity.
Surely nothing disconcerting could happen to a man who owned such a
house as this. But alas! regrettable episodes have a habit, like migrant
birds, of arriving in companies.

CHAPTER II

Mrs. Walkingshaw had been dead for many years, and in her stead Heriot's
maiden sister, a thin, elderly lady of exemplary views and conduct,
ruled her household. As her brother ruled her, he found the arrangement
worked admirably.

"Are you not coming out with me in the carriage?" said she to her niece
that afternoon.

Jean excused herself. She had letters she positively must write; and so
the two tall horses pranced off, bearing in the very large and very
shiny carriage only the exemplary lady. As she heard them clatter off
over the resounding granite, Jean gave a little skip. Her eyes danced
too and her lips smiled mysteriously. She ran upstairs like a whirlwind
and had the drawing-room door shut behind her before she paused. Only
then did she seem to feel safely alone and not in the carriage shopping.
The room was very long, and very wide, and immensely high, with three
tall windows down one side and substantial furniture purchased in the
heyday of the Victorian epoch. The slim, fair-haired figure was quite
lost in the space considered suitable by an early nineteenth-century
architect for the accommodation of a Scottish lady; and the fire made
much more of a display, glowing in the gloom of that raw February
afternoon.

Jean sat by a little writing-table and took up a pen. Then she waited,
evidently for ideas to come. Ten minutes later they arrived. The door
was softly opened, a voice respectably subdued announced the name of
"Mr. Vernon," and the duties of the pen were over.

The gentleman who entered made a remarkable contrast to the sedate
upholstery. He had a mop of brown hair upon a large and well-shaped
head, a broad face with rugged, striking features, very bright blue
eyes, a dashing cavalier mustache, and a most engaging smile. His
clothes were light of hue and very loose, his figure was of medium
height and strongly built, his collar wide open at the neck, and his tie
a large silk butterfly of an artistic shade of brown. Altogether he was
a most improbable person to find calling upon a daughter of Mr. Heriot
Walkingshaw.

He gave Jean's hand the grasp of a friend, but his eyes looked on her
with a more than friendly light in them. When he spoke, his voice was
as pleasant as his smile, and his accent