it was refreshing.
A score of times that day she was out of the shabby chaise to pick the
wild flowers or to chat with the children by the wayside. The memory of
her warm friendliness to me stands out the more clear contrasted with the
frigid days that followed.

It may be thought by some that our course in travelling together bordered
on the edge of the proprieties, but it must be remembered that the
situation was a difficult one for us both. Besides which my sister Cloe
was always inclined to be independent, of a romantical disposition, and
herself young; as for Aileen, I doubt whether any thought of the
conventions crossed her mind. Her people would be wearying to see her; her
friend Kenneth Montagu had offered his services to conduct her home;
Hamish Gorm was a jealous enough chaperone for any girl, and the maid that
Cloe had supplied would serve to keep the tongues of the gossips from
clacking.

We put up that first evening at The King's Arms, a great rambling inn of
two stories which caught the trade of many of the fashionable world on
their way to and from London. Aileen and I dined together at a table in
the far end of the large dining-room. As I remember we were still uncommon
merry, she showing herself very clever at odd quips and turns of
expression. We found matter for jest in a large placard on the wall, with
what purported to be a picture of me, the printed matter containing the
usual description and offer of reward. Watching her, I was thinking that I
had never known a girl more in love with life or with so mobile a face
when a large company of arrivals from London poured gaily into the room.

They were patched and powdered as if prepared for a ball rather than for
the dust of the road. Dowagers, frigid and stately as marble, murmured
racy gossip to each other behind their fans. Famous beauties flitted
hither and thither, beckoning languid fops with their alluring eyes. Wits
and beaux sauntered about elegantly even as at White's. 'Twas plain that
this was a party _en route_ for one of the great county houses near.

Aileen stared with wide-open eyes and parted lips at these great dames
from the fashionable world about which she knew nothing. They were
prominent members of the leading school for backbiting in England, and in
ten minutes they had talked more scandal than the Highland lass had heard
before in a lifetime. But the worst of the situation was that there was
not one of them but would cry "Mont