kilt; and if I hadn't loved him as much as I
possibly could before, I should have fallen in love with him all over
again the day I saw him in it first. He is painting my portrait in the
Gretna Green costume; and when we are tired, we take long walks
together, I in a short tweed, with my hair down my back, Ian in the
kilt. Our favourite tramp is to a mysterious, hidden lake, surrounded
with rugged black mountains like petrified guardian-dragons watching a
treasure. This wild, mountain walled lake is called the "Heart of
Dhrum," and Ian says it is no more wild or savage or dark with clouds
than _his_ heart used to be every day when he was giving other men their
chance with me. He says, too, that if the lady who used to be imprisoned
in a fearful dungeon under the dining-hall at Dunelin, and fed only with
salt beef, had been Aline West it would have served her right. He would
have given her no sympathy, but a great deal of salt and very little
beef. But of course he does not mean that. His heart overflows with
kindness for all humanity nowadays, and it never was hard really. He
finds the world a glorious place with very few faults; but he says it is
I who have taught him this lesson, and that I should be able to make a
skeleton-ghost, condemned to clank chains in an underground prison
through eternity, see his fate in a rose-coloured light. I love him to
say foolish things. And I love him when he says nothing at all, but only
looks at me.

He has taught me to dance the Highland fling. I do it with my hair down,
while the pipers pipe; and Ian cries Hoo! and Ha! and claps his hands,
as we dance, like the true Highlander he is. He was splendid in the
Games Week; for he could do the great jumps and "put" the stones as well
as the best of the Skye men who came over to compete with the men of
Dhrum. And here at Dunelin, where we danced reels till morning, on the
night of the ball we gave, he danced everybody else down--except me.

* * * * *

This castle, which my fierce ancestors built nearly a thousand years
ago, is a fairy castle for me and for Ian. It is all our own now, to
have and to hold, because he has bought it, so it will belong to a
MacDonald while it and the world lasts--I pray. We shall go to live in
America, where I hope Barbara may let me see her sometimes; but we shall
have this fairy island of purple and gold to come back to always, the
hidden home of our hearts.

I used to ask