he family appears to welcome us?

My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as attentively to
the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new to him.

The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient Northern
lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken retirement on
the barren island for twenty years past, with no other companion than a
daughter, who is his only child. He is generally believed to be one of
the most learned men living. The inhabitants of Shetland know him far
and wide, under a name in their dialect which means, being interpreted,
"The Master of Books." The one occasion on which he and his daughter
have been known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when
a terrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the
neighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night among their poor
and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no danger could shake,
with a tender care which no fatigue could exhaust. The father had
escaped infection, and the violence of the epidemic was beginning to
wear itself out, when the daughter caught the disease. Her life had been
preserved, but she never completely recovered her health. She is now an
incurable sufferer from some mysterious nervous disorder which
nobody understands, and which has kept her a prisoner on the island,
self-withdrawn from all human observation, for years past. Among the
poor inhabitants of the district, the father and daughter are worshiped
as semi-divine beings. Their names come after the Sacred Name in the
prayers which the parents teach to their children.

Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose
privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain interest
of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it fails entirely to
explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it possible that he is
not aware of our presence in the house? We apply the guide, and make a
few further inquiries of him.

"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?"

The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I could
hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries him with a
simpler form of words.

"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to the
house?"

The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of feeling
perfectly scandalized by the question.

"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough to dist