she had given me what I've heard described as a
"nasty jar." Barrie MacDonald wouldn't have appealed to Basil Norman for
a definition of love if she'd thought of him as a man and not a brother!
The side of me nearest my heart hated Somerled, marching on ahead,
looking singularly attractive and gallant, much too interesting for a
mere millionaire. And the side of me which has telephonic communication
with my brain liked and approved of him, understanding how and why his
personality made a strong appeal to most women. "You've had pretty well
everything you've asked life to give you so far," I said to his back,
"but this girl isn't your kind of girl. It's my sister you ought to
want."

Suddenly, as we drew near to the crowned church of St. Giles--the old
High Kirk--there came to our ears the skirling of pipes. Barrie started
and stopped. Somerled glanced round quickly, his eyes keen. Would she
prove her Highland blood? Would her heart beat for the pipes? That was
the question in his look.

The girl was taken by surprise. We others knew what we had come for, and
what to expect. She had no idea, except that she was being conducted
decently to church.

At the first wail of the pipes the blood of her ancestors sprang to her
face. She clasped her hands together, listening in silence to the
barbaric music, her lips apart, her eyes aglow. And all this for the
call of the pipes! Not yet had she caught her first glimpse of the
pipers; but an instant later the tall figures came swinging proudly into
sight, plaids swaying like tartan tassels, kilts moving with that
wave-about-to-break rhythm given to their garments only by inspired
pipers.

Even I felt a thrill as if each nerve in my body were a string drawn
suddenly taut, but I was gloomily conscious that the Celtic souls of
Somerled and Barrie felt more than I was capable of feeling, a
mysterious something which drew the two together at this instant.
Physically, I stood between them, but I knew that my body was no
obstacle to the lightning flash between their spirits.

Not a word said one of us as the goodly company of soldiers swept by in
a rich-coloured cloud of their own music. But when all had disappeared
into the church, Somerled and Barrie looked at each other. His eyes
praised her for a braw and bonnie lassie who had responded in fine style
to her first-heard pipes, her first-seen kilt; yet his lips had nothing
to say but, "Well, what do you think of them?"

"Think?"